#so they actually know good storytelling and can deliver what the people want

[kukuandkookie]

Random Link Click theory time but I was talking to friends about the twins’ powers and…

I suddenly thought up an idea that I’d love to be true 👁️

⚠️ SPOILERS BELOW ⚠️

Because what if Li Tianxi is actually constantly possessing Li Tianchen’s body as well as having her own in an attempt to save him?

So when what we think is Li Tianchen delivered the photo with the message to “save my good gege” to Lu Guang, it was actually still Li Tianxi and it was another attempt to save her brother…

I admit this theory is partly born out of my love for family—and sibling—drama/trauma in writing (which my best friend actually called me out on years back regarding my OCs asjakfl), but…

I keep feeling like Li Tianchen probably came close to death that night—after all, she wants to save him, based on the message on the photo. 🤔

Also we do know she can possess multiple people…!

As for everything else, yes we still don’t know a lot of things about them but!! I’d love it if this theory was true ahaha.

PS: I agree with everyone now that I’ve seen it; the ending to episode 7 was very gay. 😆

I couldn’t help joking it was Bilibili’s way of confirming that Lu Guang was the top SLFNSKDJKSSH.

Episode 8 trailer has been out on Bilibili’s YouTube for a while, and from it I get the impression Qian Jin and Li Tianxi want Cheng Xiaoshi’s powers to save their respective loved ones (their wife and brother respectively).

Although…the ep 8 trailer also has Cheng Xiaoshi say a “he” (implying Li Tianchen and not Li Tianxi) can definitely possess people, so…who knows how they’ll throw us for a loop again. 😂

I just like the idea of Li Tianxi going a little off-kilter to try and save her brother—a “you protected me; now it’s my turn to protect you” kind of story. 👀🙏

But if it was actually Li Tianchen giving Lu Guang the photo to save his sister or something else entirely (they share a body? Li Tianchen’s the one who’s off-kilter?), that could still be interesting!

Director Li Haolin has always been an unpredictable storyteller, so I’m not going to try and theorize too hard. Although I also do love the Lu Guang being from a different timeline and trying his damndest to save Cheng Xiaoshi—to the point of that’s why he’s so cynical about time travel and has these rules and seems experienced and also has an unknown age—theory… But that’s another topic for another day.

#link click #shiguang daili ren #时光代理人 #time agents #donghua #shi guang dai li ren #chinese animation #kuku88 #kuku rambles #cheng xiaoshi #lu guang #li tianxi #li tianchen #qian jin

[tabithatwo]

Ella Purnell I'M IN YOUR WALLS..... I WANT THAT MOMENT WHERE SHAUNA GETS HER BACK TO BE IN THE FINALE PLEASE GOD. LET'S MANIFEST IT. YOU'RE SO RIGHT THEY ARE SETTING IT UP. THEY HAVE NOT JUST DROPPED THAT STORYLINE THANK FUCK I WAS SO WORRIED THERE FOR A SEC. JACKIE HAUNTING SHAUNA IS SO UNBELIEVABLY CRUCIAL IT CANNOT LITERALLY JUST DISAPPEAR IT WOULD MAKE NO NARRATIVE SENSE WHATSOEVER!!!! I need to calm down but I do think, even if I dislike the creative choice due to my Jackie Bias, that it does make sense for Shauna to temporarily lose the ability to hallucinate her after cannibalizing her and thus feeling the absence of her physical body. Jackie is inside her now but she can't see her so it's not as easy as projecting that false image of her being alive onto her corpse like she was before. Actually kind of excited to see what will allow Shauna to conjure her up again.... In my mind the Jackie we've seen thus far truly was a hallucination because she was so clearly vocalizing Shauna's subconscious desires BUT I desperately want them to actually communicate. I want Shauna to see Jackie and have a conversation with her and for it to genuinely feel like Jackie's ghost. Need Jackie to be tangible I miss my girl so bad. I know she's got shit to say LET HER SPEAK! I know you might not answer this ask but I'd love your thoughts !!!!

ELLA HAS BEEN TRYING SHE'S BEEN LIKE HEYYYYYYY YELLOWJACKETS LET ME OUT OF MY CAGE I WOULD LIKE TO PLAY JACKIE TAYLOR MORE which is why it is so frustrating to me like DAMN i am in the walls of the showtime execs who didn't wanna pay for her ass and/or showrunners who didn't wanna use her WHATEVER. my biggest fear is the lack of her presence (ella or not!) in 2021 HOWEVER i think that this show is very WILLING to do a thing i don't love but need to get on board with i guess, which is completely reshape the way the adults interact with things based on what we're seeing unfold in 96 (nobody come explain narrative storytelling to me PLEASE i beg you, i've learned to give so many disclaimers that i Understand Things now cause BOY do people want to educate you, i understand pulling focus to a theme i pinky promise!!! i just think that, partly because of all the other characters and storylines they crammed into 21, they shift to a degree that Lacks The Level Of Character Continuity That I Desire, okay it is a personal PREFERENCE, if you don't care about that i am SO HAPPY FOR YOU!!!!!!) sorry anon, for the obligatory pls know i understand things aside. NOW 96 jackie. yes yes yes agree!! meat shed jackie that we've had was hallucination, with near 100% certainty. i think that if they're planning on delivering on all the threads they start to unravel in this show (which doesn't always happen in any show so i am cautious in my optimism) they have got to do something with 1x10. the cabin guy presence in the dream realm is really a firm suggestion that there are ghosts happening. laura lee can be written off as a dream they would have, but he is NOT. now i DO think they're putting way too much effort into this dream realm to NOT have it be developed or mean something, and i think that the separation between everyone else in jackie's death dream and cabin guy and laura lee coming in and welcoming her is pretty concrete. there is...whatever the fuck the uncanny valley versions of the yellowjackets are (i think they're "it" playing tricksy games personally) and the Actual Dead (cabin guy, laura lee, jackie). SO ALL THIS TO SAY yeah. i think there is real potential for them to pick up that thread and establish ghost jackie. i think there is also potential for her and shauna to communicate. i think PERSONALLY (no one come to my asks to tell me this is stupid i literally cannot handle you today okay give a girl a break i beg) that there's a very good chance that by the end of the show shauna in the 21 timeline sees/communicates with/(joins?) ghost jackie, whether she gets to see her in 96 tl or not. these are my thoughts they have diverted maybe from your point and if so i am so sorry lol along those lines i have RAGING adhd, so when you say i might not answer i hope it isn't because i haven't responded to an ask you've sent me before but if it is i promise it isn't personal! this goes to anyone else too, like i really have 17 things happening at once at all times and i drop the ball sometimes lol but know that i love to hear people's thoughts <3 <3

#asks answered #jackie taylor #shauna shipman #jackie x shauna #yellowjackets

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

I read Clementine Book One 9 times so that you don’t have to read it at all

Spoiler-free review: It’s not great. 1.5/5 stars. 

"Clementine is back on the road, looking to put her traumatic past behind her and forge new path all her own. But when she comes across an Amish teenager named Amos with his head in the clouds, the unlikely pair journeys North to an abandoned ski resort in Vermont, where they meet up with a small group of teenagers attempting to build a new, walker-free settlement. As friendship, rivalry, and romance begin to blossom amongst the group, the harsh winter soon reveals that the biggest threat to their survival...might be each other. “

The best way I can describe Clementine in this is if TFS never happened and this is an older, slightly less angsty ANF Clementine who also lost a leg.  She’s not great.

Amos is the best character. He has a goal, a drive to reach that goal, and an actual personality that shines through in every page he’s in. He’s also the only character Clementine has any real chemistry with, which isn’t good news for her new love interest. 

Speaking of which, Ricca didn’t reach the potential I felt she should’ve. She has a fine backstory, but the way it was delivered was info-dumpy and not built up well. Her “romantic chemistry” with Clementine is practically non-existent, rushed, and a little awkward. 

The twins, Olivia and Georgia, were bland and annoying.

The baddie of the story is weak as hell. They do something terrible for a reason so overdone that it actually makes my brain mad.

The story is okay for the first half, but takes a steep nose dive in the second half that ruins what little good will it got outta me. Everything mentioned that was from the games felt shoehorned in for fanservice points and not because it contributed to the story. The pacing is all over the place, and the ending is just... annoying. The artwork isn’t Tillie Walden’s best, I know she can do so much better when she’s allowed to play with color and give her work a more dream-like quality, which the story doesn’t.

I originally rated it a 1/5 stars, but after reading it 9 goddamn times, I bumped it up to a 1.5/5 stars mostly for Amos, the few chuckles it got out of me, and one part that I genuinely liked. 

My full detailed review is below. It’s long, gives a recap of the 12-page Clementine Lives comic from Skybound X, addresses the harassment Tillie Walden has gotten over this, and spoils everything within book one. 

so how the hell did we even get here?

On August 14, 2018, the first episode of Telltale’s The Walking Dead: The Final Season was released, a game developed by a team that showed great care and passion for the story they wanted to tell and was meant to give Clementine’s story a satisfying ending. It’s not a game without flaws, both in its storytelling and mechanics. If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you know I have my complaints about each of the games but at the end of the day, I love them, flaws and all. 

On September 21, 2018, we got the news that Telltale Games would be closing its doors. About 90% of their employees were let go with only about 25 remaining to fulfill the important obligations they couldn’t wiggle out of... y’know, like finishing a version of Minecraft Story Mode made for Netflix.... which if you know me, you know how I feel about MCSM and I’m sure you can guess the speed at which my eyes rolled upon reading that. 

With the closure of Telltale Games came hundreds of people suddenly out of a job, the cancellation of several games, and the realization that we wouldn’t get the rest of TFS. Sad times all around, statements were being made by Telltale [ex] employees, not fun in the slightest, you would go to youtube to watch playthroughs of episode 2 when it dropped and every creator was original enough to title their videos “GOODBYE TELLTALE” or “THE END OF CLEMENTINE.” 

But then Robert Kirkman told everyone to chill the hell out, Skybound Entertainment worked out a deal with Telltale, they’re going to finish off TFS through their Skybound Games division, all with the original development team who were working on it. 

The fans rejoiced, the Telltale team got to complete their game the way they wanted, and Skybound were heroes being praised by the fans. TFS was great, my personal favorite of the four main games. 10/10, would play it 100 more times. Clementine finally got the happy ending she deserved.

....But then we got Clementine Lives as a part of the Skybound X collection...and Clementine Book One was announced for summer 2022. 

A lot less happy after that. 

“blah blah die a hero or live long enough to be the baddie or something.” -Scarecrow, probably

 In hindsight, we should’ve seen this coming. What, Skybound gets all the rights to Clementine and we expected them to respectfully leave the conclusion of her story alone? That’s not how the money is made, babe! 

Clementine is a cow who just wants to be free and eat dewy grass all day in the warm sunlight but that isn’t about to stop Skybound from locking her up in a barn stall before getting on their hands and knees to pull and twist and squeeze every single last drop they can get outta her. Even if she runs outta milk, they can just shoot her and turn her meat into steaks and ribs and tenderloins and anything else you can get out of a cow down to the bones. When they’re desperate enough, they can make some bone broth.... I don’t really know where I’m going with this, we can just pretend I meant this as a metaphor for how they butchered her or something. 

Anyway, anything to continue making money on a franchise that is still fairly popular... I think? Aside from Telltale’s The Walking Dead, I’m not a big fan of the TWD franchise in general, any other content I tried intaking was meh at best. I lost interest in the show after S1. The books about the Governor weren’t all that interesting. I browsed the comics and they couldn’t hold my attention.  

I even played and finished the awful Daryl Dixon prequel game that no one else played. The most interesting thing in that game is if you run for more than 3.5 seconds, sweat blurs and drips down the screen as Daryl shits himself... riveting.

Now we have a Clementine trilogy to throw in there. 

Skybound decided they wanted to branch out into the young adult and middle grade world. Makes sense. Reach out to new fans, get some young blood to flow into crevices left by old fans who are no longer interested, expand your reach as far as possible... all they have to do is tell a compelling story in their well-established world with fleshed out characters while also checking all the boxes to ensure success. Sounds easy, right?  

Enter Skybound X and within it Clementine Lives, a 12-page comic tying together TFS and Clementine Book One.

I have a full in depth look at that comic here, but for a refresher: 

After the events of TFS, Clementine sneaks out of Ericson one morning without telling anyone and we find out that she’s planned her departure for a while. She has maps and supplies hidden away, as well a car stashed somewhere. Before she can get away, though, an older AJ appears wearing Clementine’s hat... Ugh.

He’s rightfully pissed that she would ditch out on everything like this, insists that he’s coming along, and Clementine tells him no. Her explanation for all of this, the reason she’s abandoning AJ and everyone at Ericson, is that she’s not happy... which spoiler alert, is kinda contradicted in chapter 8 of book one??? but we will get into that later. AJ lets Clementine leave and she sets off on her new journey that brings us to the events of book one. 

To say Clementine Lives was poorly received would be a vast understatement. Fans ripped it to shreds, they hated the damn thing, and they were vocal about it. There’s no way in hell Skybound didn’t know how much fans despised Clementine Lives. I mean, people were making long-winded posts/videos about how it was an insult to Clementine’s character and asking everyone to not support the Clementine trilogy, to let Skybound know that this isn’t what they wanted.

Fans hated the portrayal of Clementine and AJ. They felt it had more in common with a fanfic written by someone who didn’t play the games themselves but instead watched a youtube playthrough one [1] time, thought Clementine was cool but didn’t like anyone else and said, “Hey what if Clem ditched everyone and hung out with my OC’s instead??” than it did with the canon of the games.

I mean, who wrote this, right? Did they even play the games? Well...

Tillie Walden and the Curious Case of Clementine’s Character [and other short stories involving obnoxious twdg fans who have nothing better to do with their lives than stalk her instagram account]

I hadn’t heard of Tillie Walden prior to the announcement that she would be the one writing this Clementine book trilogy.

I’ll admit, I hated the 12-page comic, too. In my review I said, “...Skybound and Tillie made this comic, they put it out there and asked for money for it, therefore I’m allowed to explain why it’s garbage as well as ponder over the questionable intent and whether or not Tillie actually has played these games.”

“This comic is awful. It misses the point of everything TFS, and the rest of the series, stood for. There is no heart here. I feel no happiness in reading it, and I don’t detect any passion behind it. It’s a lifeless comic that retcons everything in order to throw AJ away and start fresh with a new adventure for Clementine that makes no sense because the cow isn’t profitable unless it’s milked.”

That was then and this is now, though. While I still don’t like the comic and feel it’s not in line with Clementine as a character or a good direction for the comic, I do believe Tillie has played the games... the problem is she admitted during the Skybound Games XPO stream that she hadn’t played the games prior to getting the job. Skybound reached out to her and THEN she played through them, and she played through them fast...and I doubt she played them more than once. That’s an issue. 

I’ve read some of her other works- On a Sunbeam, Spinning, A City Inside- and I think they’re good, I think she’s a talented artist. Some of the writing choices/themes are a bit iffy but most times I can overlook that because I genuinely love the art. It’s colorful, surreal, dreamy, creative, the kind of art you look at and feel something, y’know? Oh, and she likes to point out, “very gay.” Even if you hate the Clementine books she’s writing, I still encourage you to give her other works a chance. There’s a lot more life and creativity there. I can see why she was considered, despite Tillie saying herself that she didn’t think she was the “obvious choice” for this project..... which yeah, even she knows.

This one pesky little problem has more to do with Skybound than it does Tillie: creating a continuation of Clementine’s story after TFS is a dumb move... especially when the artist you hired didn’t work on the original games, doesn’t typically write stories in a zombie apocalyptic setting so their art style doesn’t let itself well to this particular project, doesn’t have a good grasp on the main character’s previous establishment, hasn’t played the games more than once or twice, probably has to follow a strict set of rules put in place by Skybound because they’re just like that, is under an extreme time constraint of having to finish a trilogy only three years mostly by herself, and is forced to make shit up about the previous games in order to make this comic’s plot exist.

In my honest opinion, Tillie wasn’t a good match for a Clementine story, and if she was allowed to write something completely original within the TWD universe, then this would’ve been a more compelling story to follow. 

Let me say this about Clementine Book One: If anyone else was the protagonist of this story, it would’ve been better. I would’ve given it a 3.5/5 stars if Clementine was replaced with an original character. 

That’s the problem. 

I know a lot of people put the full blame on Tillie for how bad this whole thing is. She wrote it right? She “ruined” Clementine, it’s all her fault that this beloved character and reputation is “tarnished” and she should just cancel the rest of the series, blah blah blahhh. 

I don’t entirely blame Tillie for this. She was hired to write this story because Skybound knew people would buy anything with Clementine’s name on it, good or bad. They knew Tillie had a fanbase who would buy anything she wrote. They knew that no matter how much fans bitched and moaned about it, Clementine Book One would sell. I believe she should’ve familiarized herself with the source material better, but she’s a professional artist. I believe she tried her best to create a good story for this trilogy but it’s weighed down by the fact that the main character had to be Clementine. 

Which leads me to this bullshit that pisses me off. 

There are plenty of assholes out there who stalk her instagram so they can harass every post she makes [even ones that have nothing to do with Clementine] with “#notmyclementine” and “dis comic make no sense clam wuld never lev aj u sux” as if that’s going to do anything. Not to mention the comments wishing for her to be fired, hoping she loses her entire career over this, calling her a fucking groomer, and other disgusting things that you don’t have to scroll far to find in her instagram comments. 

This is the part where I tell everyone to sit the fuck down and stop. There is no reason to harass Tillie for doing the work she was hired to do. Telling her [and Skybound] that she should be fired, making homophobic remarks, insulting her appearance, wishing harm on her, telling her how much you hate her, calling her a groomer, and harassing fans of hers who want to support her is fucking disgusting. 

Clementine is not real. She is a fictional character in a video game. This comic doesn’t hurt her feelings because she doesn’t exist. Clementine, the video game character, is not a real life person. I don’t give a single shit how important Clementine is to you. You are not defending anyone’s honor or protecting them from harm when you post shit like that. You’re causing the harm over a fictional character. Tillie Walden is a real person.  You can dislike the work while still showing human decency to the creator. You can criticize the work while remaining respectful to the creator. It’s not hard. 

Now that you’ve scolded us for the shitty people on instagram, are you gonna actually review the book or are you gonna keep procrastinating...?

Hey, don’t call me out on something I’m totally doing.

And yes, we can review the actual book now that I’ve gone over how we got here and hit you over the head with the “don’t harass Tillie over the comic, shithead” bat. 

Yeesh, so impatient. 

The Plot: it’s thickening... like curdled cheese

First thing’s first, let’s go over the story, the plot, of this thing. Then I’ll go in depth for each of the characters, talk about the “romance,” finish up with my final thoughts, and then talk about Clementine Book Two coming out June October 2023. Cool? Cool. 

Clementine has left Ericson behind and is traveling alone with nothing but a pair of crutches to keep her warm at night. She's discovered by a group of Amish teens after being startled by her own period. Gotta say, I love the attempt to include Clementine having her period tastefully by having one of the other girls be like, “Oh, I just started mine, too,” only for another to be like “Don’t tell her that, ewwwwww!” 

Remember how well ANF handled that? No? Just me? Whatever. 

Anyway, they notice Clementine has a prosthetic leg and offer to take her back to their town to meet Rabby, a dentist who creates prosthetics. This town they take her to is actually neat. They have high walls, guards who have a system of keeping track of everyone who comes and goes, they’re not rude to her during the entrance procedure, there are several buildings with a lot of people walking the streets, they have horses..... oh and Meredith, one of the girls who found Clementine, calls the walkers “devils,” which is fun. 

Clementine gets her new leg before ditching them to go back on the road where she meets Amos, an Amish teen who is out on his Rumspringa [a period when some Amish youth experience greater freedom. The idea is that teens will come back after tasting the modern world] with his horse, Helen, his carriage, and his 16 shirts.

Amos is heading to a mountain base up north in Vermont to help a group build a “strong homestead” throughout the winter, then when the snow melts, he’ll be rewarded with a plane ride. Clementine thinks that’s bullshit, planes don’t fly around anymore, but Amos insists that he saw the plane in the sky. 

Y’see, a man showed up looking for recruits to help build these houses and then flew his plane over as proof that this was real. Amos really wants to ride in a plane, something he’s not supposed to do, hence why he’s going on this adventure for his Rumspringa. 

Clementine gets a ride from him where they save a group of people who were under attack by walkers. However, one of the guys they saved gropes Clementine and she attacks him. 

It’s difficult to tell that’s what happened due to the sloppy art, though. Initially I interpreted it as Clementine thinking he turned into a walker and attacked, but uh no, he groped her. She stomps on his hand after he challenges her with a, “do it,” and then as she’s hurrying to get away, someone else from inside the carriage says, “What did you do to that girl?!”

I would say I’m surprised but given some of the other stuff in Tillie’s works, I’m not. 

Anyway, Amos leaves the carriage with those people, takes Helen and catches up with Clementine. He wants to travel with her, she calls him ridiculous and “I’m not interested in being a bodyguard anymore.”

It doesn’t take much to convince to her, though- Amos promises to leave Helen with her once he gets there since he knows she’d take care of her. 

And I’m strangely reminded of Clementine’s trauma regarding horses from TFS where dead horses appear in her nightmare due to the one she was riding getting shot at the ranch... no mention of that anywhere, but are we surprised? 

They spend a week traveling together. We get a montage of them that I actually like, and adds to my point that Amos has the most chemistry with Clementine in this book. 

They make it to the mountain base where a pair of twins are waiting, and they’re suspicious as hell. 

Red flag #1: No names. They refuse to give their names. 

Red flag #2: One twin shoots Helen without even talking to Clementine or Amos, they just assumed they brought the horse for them to eat when nooo, Amos wanted to leave Helen with Clementine when they parted ways.

Red flag #3: They immediately view Clementine as a liability for her leg and tell her they’re not feeding anyone who can’t pull their weight... two people who refuse to give their names are in charge of your food and shelter, huh?

Red flag #4: Clementine says they’re dangerous and refuses to leave Amos alone with them. 

Red flag #5: the mountain they’re on is literally called Killington. My eyes, look at them roll, there they go across the floor...

Hey, do you think these twins might be bad news? Because I dooooo~

But there’s a really sweet hug between Amos and Clementine after she insists she stays with him. You really feel that he’s scared and hurting after Helen’s death and he’s relieved to have her. 

Up the mountain, we’re introduced to Ricca and.... y’know, not even Louis and Violet eye-balled Clementine this fast. I’ll save it for the romance section but uh... yeah. Ricca’s interest is apparent pretty quick... like right after their first conversation and then it goes no where.

So the twins explain that they need wood for building and the stove, snow melts down for water. Stick to the paths when out because the twins won’t come looking for them [red flag #6], they work from sunrise to sunset but the days are short up in the mountains so they need to move fast. They lose a lot of days to storms, they need to keep track of all their tools and bring them in during those storms or else they’ll never be seen again. Walkers don’t come up here because it’s too cold. 

The twins refuse to answer more questions, and Ricca says she’s been calling the one with the ponytail “Right” and the one with her hair down “Left.” 

Side note: I had a helluva time trying to keep these damn twins straight, you cannot tell them apart for shit especially since they change their goddamn hair styles and have the same goddamn face!

Oh but put a pin in the fact that Amos can tell them apart because “Left has much brighter eyes.”

So they all get to work. Clementine, Amos, and Ricca get pretty close. They go on joyrides with the snowmobile, they spend their nights reading novels together, getting into snowball fights that Clem takes too seriously, hunting, and talking about how sus the twins are. These sections are good, I like them. Especially when they’re reading together- Amos and Clementine read out loud, and when they don’t know a word, Ricca looks it up for them in the dictionary. The three of them are curled up in their sleeping bags, reading by candle light, it’s very sweet. It’s too bad there isn’t more of that in here. 

While out chopping wood one day, Clementine hears a noise that is supposed to foreshadow walkers being underground, and we find out Ricca is a smoker. 

Oh, and Amos gets sick with a fever. Not fun. 

Now let’s talk about the generator because this is funny. Not good funny, though, so don’t get too excited. 

So they have this portable generator, right? It’s for the other lift that they just fixed, so Clementine and Ricca have to drag it about three miles away from the main base, but can take a shorter way over a bridge the twins built. They take a map, put it on the snowmobile, and Ricca let’s Clementine drive. Smart. 

But uh oh, the bridge is broken! Guess they gotta turn around and go the other- just kidding, they’re gonna tie a rope around the generator and swing it to the other side. I wish I was joking but I’m not, aren’t you laughing???

Ricca fucking falls down with the generator and Clementine jumps down after her. 

While down in the pit, they’re attacked by walkers. Turns out the twins weren’t entirely truthful about there being no walkers up here. Ricca breaks her glasses, Clem breaks her prosthetic [which we learn she named Kenny UGH] and Ricca dumps her backstory which I’ll get into during her section.

Ricca then climbs back up and promises to come back, we get a flashback of AJ about to cut Clementine’s leg off? for some reason? and then she starts exploring the cave for a way out... only to be overwhelmed by walkers and then saved by this random dude named Tim who comes out of nowhere.

Tim gets bit, or scratched...? I don’t know, you can’t tell what the fuck is going on during the part. He says it’s just a scratch on the cheek but I thought you only turned if you were bit? Or is it a bite and Tim’s trying to downplay it? I don’t fucking know. 

Clementine feels super bad that he’s gonna die because of her. They have a heart to heart, and it’s one of the better parts of this book. Tim talks about how he lost his husband at the start of all this, how he actually used to look after the twins [whose names are revealed to be Olivia and Georgie- correction, her name is GeorgIA, not GeorgIE, but characters just call her one or the other and it gets confusing] and how this whole building houses thing is for their sick mother. Clementine opens up about how she can still feel ghost pains in her leg and how she ended up alone- every group was the same, they fell apart, so she wanted to come up north to live alone. 

“I can’t... I can’t do this. I can’t keep watching people die. That’s why I wanted to be alone.”

Tim gives her some encouragement about building a better world and lets her to go, she does, and then she reunites with Ricca. Yay. 

Back at the base, Clementine tells the twins what happened and they’re freaked out because Tim’s alive. They interrogate her about him, and Right runs outta there to go find him... Left tries to stop her, and it turns to violence.

With Right gone, Left is super sad, and Ricca is super sad that Clementine didn’t tell her about Tim after they were reunited and then outta nowhere just, “I don’t need a girlfriend or to know all your secrets, just... God, I sound stupid. Just... next time you meet a stranger in a cave, a heads up might be nice.”

Feel that romantic tension? 

Speaking of romantic tension, Left asks Amos to come behind the curtain to her area, and Amos is like “Can I get you something?”..... and then Clementine’s hears a gasp from behind the curtain and Ricca is like “let them have their fun.”

So apparently Amos and Left were fooling around... remember when Amos said Left had brighter eyes? I guess that was foreshadowing all the smoochin’ they were gonna do in the background? I dunno. I’m surprised Amos would be chill with foolin’ around, and Left just got into a fight with her sister which I don’t imagine is a mood setter. 

Right comes back in the middle of the night covered in blood. I believe we’re assuming she found and killed Tim, who was a walker... maybe? She later mentions that Tim told her something sooo did she kill him when he was still alive? Maybe. Who knows? We never find out for sure.

Oh, and Amos was sleeping behind the curtain with Left.... Keep that in mind. 

The next morning Amos fixes up Clementine’s leg, and Clementine asks for the whole story behind him and Left, who he calls Olivia... meaning she told him her real name. But Clementine asks him if he wants to take a walk when night falls because they haven’t gotten to spend much time together, to which Amos tells her, “That would be delightful, Clementine.” 

Can I just- Clementine, why don’t you ever ask to spend alone time with Ricca? That’s a serious question, why? I’m seriously truly to feel something with Clementine and Ricca but all I can say is she has better chemistry with Amos.... Tillie, I don’t understand, you write wlw and you’ve done it well before, why is this so... full of nothing? 

Anyway, Right is being pissy, and Left tells Clementine that she’s going to leave with Amos once they’re all done here. She wants to go back to his town, but her sister can’t know...... because of course not. I’m sure nothing bad will happen because of this. 

Right comes in even more pissed off because Amos is gone and so is the snowmobile. Turns out he took the generator [which Left fixed after it was broken in the fall] to save this “screwed up camp,” as Clementine puts it. 

And Right goes, “there’s a storm coming in, he’ll never make it... but at least it’ll be one less mouth to feed.”

RED FLAG #8 HELLO??

The storm hits, and Right just stands outside like a brooding, suspicious asshole who refuses to come in. Left then explains that they’re here building houses because of her mother. Her mother grew up in the area and thought this would be the perfect spot to rebuild when the world went to shit. She kept them alive, so the twins feel like they owe her, especially since she’s sick. 

Which.... okay? But also what? Like alright, jumping ahead a bit, we do get to see the mother and the place they’re staying in and it’s huge, AND there are people.... why is it just the twins doing this shit? Tim fucking dipped out last winter so why are the twins here? Do they think building houses will make their sick mother magically better? Spoiler alert, it will not! 

This whole part doesn’t make sense. 

But then RICCA decides to go out looking for Amos, and tells Clementine to stay behind because she doesn’t want to leave Left alone with Right.... 

But then fucking CLEMENTINE goes out by herself to look for both of them, all while thinking about Ricca and Amos and the nights they spent reading together.  

But guess what? You’ll never guess- Amos and Ricca are alive and he did it, Amos got the lift to work! He crashed the snowmobile, but that’s okay! The other lift works now! They rush to bring the twins the good news, everything is happy!

And then Right pushes Amos off a cliff. 

...............................Yep.

This is where the story takes a nose dive into shit- Amos is killed because Right found out about Left’s plan to leave with him... apparently?? Left is sobbing on the ground, Right fucking stomps on her back and tells her to shut up, and then pulls out her gun on Clementine and Ricca, who run away. 

Are you laughing? because I’m not. 

What was the fucking plan, you moron??? “Oh step one, push Amos to his death in front of everyone. Step two, break my sister’s back. Step three, fucking shoot Clem and Ricca. Step four, ??????” It doesn’t make sense.

Up until this point, I was fine. It wasn’t great by any means, the plot is kinda dumb with them building houses in extreme weather, everything with the generator was dumb..... Right’s always been an asshole, but now she’s decided to be evil. 

The story just killed off its best character out of nowhere. It feels very “we have to kill someone off, and Tim wasn’t enough, we have to kill off a likable character so that the reader is sad.” 

And like... I can’t even say it wasn’t foreshadowed? because right from the start, you know Right is a bitch. You know she’s an asshole, much more so than Left. Then Left starts smooching Amos and asks Clementine not to tell Right? C’mon... even though we get no indication that she knows about Left’s plan to leave with him. Maybe she saw him peeking from behind the curtain where she knows her sister sleeps and figured out they were smoochin’? I don’t know, I really wish things were actually clear in this damn thing. 

So yeah, Right decides murder is a good idea because she won’t let anyone take her sister away... I feel like I’ve seen something similar to this before. 

We get another Lee flashback, and now Ricca and Clementine are crying. Ricca wants to go looking for him, but Clementine tells her there’s no way Amos survived that fall.... even though he probably could have, we never see his body so I dunno if this is Tillie leaving things open for him to come back or if she didn’t want to show his body to all the middle graders reading this but this is TWD... no body? they can always come back. 

Clementine and Ricca decide they can’t just ditch the mountain yet, they have to save Left from Right- oh excuse me, Olivia... they have to save Olivia from Georgia. 

So they sit outside of camp and wait for sundown... but here is where I get even more pissed than I was before: Clementine explains why she left Ericson. 

“I spent so many years trying to find somewhere safe. And I did. This old school. There were good people there. People I loved. But after I lost my leg, everything felt different. No one said it, but I could feel it- they thought I was a liability. But I think the real issue... was that I couldn’t talk to any of them about it. They were all around my age, and I... I just wanted to talk to Lee about it. Someone older, and... I don’t know...”

“Lee?”

“He, um, was with me in the beginning. Took care of me, as long as he could. After leaving the school, I was alone, like I was when he first found me. And I realized... I was waiting for him. For Lee to come find me. And I was so pissed at him for not trying harder, which doesn’t make any sense, he’s dead... When I was on my own, it was nice for a while. I was so focused, my mind got quiet... I got so sad I would just cry for days, and then I’d get scared... about what my future would be like. That maybe this sadness would never go away.”

“Has it?”

“Honestly? No... not really.”

................I just-

I thought Clementine left because she wasn’t happy? That’s what she told AJ in Clementine Lives, so what? “Well actually, I really left because everyone at Ericson thought I was a liability and I just wanted to talk to Lee again but he’s dead and I’m pissed at him for being dead and not trying hard enough to save me again.” 

This “reveal” is so... bad. It’s bad, I don’t like it one bit because I actually played TFS... more than once. I’ve played it several times, I’ve streamed it about what? Four or five times? Shit, maybe more? I know the story, I know the characters, I know Clementine.

You’re gonna look me in my big dumb face and try to convince me that Louis and Violet looked at Clementine like she was a liability? After everything she did for them? After all they went through? Clementine didn’t feel like she could talk to them about how she was feeling? That they didn’t care enough to reach out to her?

I don’t believe you. 

I think you’re full of shit. 

I’ll rant about this more in Clementine’s section. We gotta move on because believe it or not, we have even more bullshit to cover. 

ANYWAY.... Georgia has Olivia gagged and tied up so she can’t escape.... I just, what is the plan?? What does she expect to happen??

 Clementine and Ricca trick her into coming outside and-

Clementine gets her with the hatchet, but Georgia has a gun up her sleeve and shoots Ricca. The gunshots cause an avalanche. The place is covered in snow, Ricca and Olivia are *not* okay, and Georgie is just spouting cheesy villain lines about leaving Clementine’s body on the mountain. 

Oh, and she starts trying to guilt Olivia with the whole “Everything I did was for you! I’ve always protected you! He was going to take you away from me! Tim told me not to let you go!”

...Again, I feel like this is very familiar.... hmmmmm....

“You’ve never loved anyone, Clementine, I can see it. You have no idea... how far I’ll go... what I’ll do...”

No seriously, why do I feel like there was another, much better written twin character behaving like this.....? hmmmmmm....

Anyway, Georgia gets bit by a walker while trapped in the snow, and Clementine FINALLY says something I agree with:

“Out of everyone in this world that your sister could’ve picked... you were so lucky it was Amos.”

Georgia and Olivia say their goodbyes, Ricca calls Clementine “baby,” and they drag her outta there. 

Now it’s just Clementine, Ricca, and Olivia left. The three of them travel to the lift and get off this damn mountain. They get the bullet outta Ricca when Clementine hears a noise outside. She follows it and finds a one-eyed kitten alone under some junk... because sure. They name the kitten Dr. Barnwell. 

I can’t wait for that kitten to be tragically killed off for dramatic effect later in the series. To be fair to Tillie, she couldn’t possibly write an beloved pet death as bad as Rueben’s in MCSM.

Now the plan is to get back to Olivia’s place, sneak past her mother, and steal the plane. Reasonable, yes? Planes are easy to steal, and easy to fly, too!

Ricca also mentions that Clementine talks in her sleep, but won’t tell her what she says until they’re in the sky. 

They finally make it there, sneak in, Olivia tells her mother she’s sorry before slipping a note under the door, they run around and knock some guards out, and it’s revealed that Olivia’s mother is a walker. 

I think.

The art is too sloppy to fully tell but I think that’s the big reveal. 

So... did they know that the whole time? This is what they meant when they said she’s sick? or was she sick before and then died during this time so they have no idea? Ugghhh I don’t know.

They find the plane that Olivia just happens to know how to fly thanks to her uncle teaching her, they take off into the sky, and they plan to go back to Vermont so they can fly over and “let’s show Amos the plane one more time.”

Oh, and that note Olivia left? 

The FUCKING END. 

That’s it, that’s everything that happened in Clementine Book One. I can’t believe I’ve read this time nine times, holy shit-

The Art Style: I have no idea what’s happening

I struggled with this art style. 

Remember how I said Tillie’s a talented artist? She is, she truly is... when it’s her original works and she’s allowed to play with color and doesn’t haven’t to be gritty to fit the TWD aesthetic. Her original stuff is so clean and you can actually see what’s happening. 

Some examples:

and I get it, her style won’t be for everyone, and that’s fine. I happen to really like it.... but not when it feels like she’s trying to implement elements of TWD grit while also working in greyscale.  

Tillie’s style doesn’t lend itself well to this story. Maybe it would if there weren’t such restrictions put on her by Skybound because I’m sure they gave her a bunch.... but this ain’t it, chief.

As I talked about before, trying to tell the twins apart in this was a nightmare. Olivia has a ponytail, Georgia doesn’t.... but when this is so messy and at times sloppy I can’t tell shit about the hair. 

There’s also the fact that if you removed Ricca’s glasses, she would look exactly like the twins. Clementine and Amos are the only two of the five who you can always recognize. 

Rabby has a good design, and so does Tim... but they aren’t around enough. The walkers- oh god, the walkers- look like blobs most of the time. 

And don’t even get my started on Clementine’s face. 

I can’t with Clementine’s face. 

Clementine: there’s a reason fans are calling her “Tangerine”

This section of the review is the most overwhelming for me because where do I even begin? 

There is never a point in this book where I feel like this is the Clementine I remember from the games. And y’know, I always like to remind everyone who plays the games that no Clementine is the same. We all play the games our way, she shape our Clementine through the choices we make, we have different interpretations of her personality, relationships, how she rationalizes her decisions. My Clementine is different than yours, that’s the fun of these games. 

When you take a character who has thousands of different interpretations, who can follow several different paths, and try to make her into a condensed version for a graphic novel while also trying to stay true to her character and not invalidate any choices.... it’s not going to work. It’s just not. 

So how does Tillie Walden interpret Clementine for this first installment? Who is Clementine here?

She’s dull. Awkward. Angsty. Feels more in line with ANF Clementine than TFS Clementine but toned down. She has a few moments where she teases Amos and Ricca and that’s cute, that’s some personality I want to see... but then she starts on about how talking is hard or makes a rude comment so... that’s cool. 

She feels dumbed down when it comes to first aid solely because the book needs a way to inform the reader of proper amputation care... even though we never see Clementine washing her leg after that.

She’s pessimistic, grumpy, and again, only really shows a soft spot for Amos... which is not good news for Ricca, her actual love interest. Even when she opens up to Ricca after Amos’ death, it doesn’t feel... earned? warm? It doesn’t feel tender, or comforting.... ugh, I’ll talk more in the romance portion.

Clementine does get emotional after Amos’ death, she cries and explains why she left Ericson and I’m still shaking my head at the fact that this book is trying to sell this to me. 

This would be an emotional moment if it were coming from anyone BUT CLEMENTINE.... I played TFS and this doesn’t add up. 

Clementine wasn’t happy at the end of TFS, everyone around her looked at her like she was a liability, so she left. She left AJ. 

Except no? What are you talking about? 

Oh, and by the way? She never mentions AJ to anyone. Not by name, not in passing, nothing. AJ get a single panel flashing back to when he cut her leg off. That’s it. 

Also look at the way he’s drawn. Someone who never played the games would probably think AJ was a baddie who cut off her leg but you and I both know how fucking raw and painful it was for AJ to beg her to get up and come with him. That one lousy image holds nothing from the original.

AJ might as well not exist. If you took that panel out, nothing would change. Honestly? I almost get a bit of bitterness from it. She goes on and on about how she realized she was going to live while everyone around her kept dying, she would spend some days just crying and crying.... it’s not great. 

Clementine feels... immature? And yeah, she’s seventeen in this and seventeen-year-olds aren’t the pinnacle of maturity. I feel like Tillie was trying to present her as mature for her age given her life experience in the apocalypse, but it comes off as emo teenager who thinks they’re mature because they write faux deep poetry on tumblr and wear combat boots. 

This isn’t like Clementine in TFS where you do feel she’s mature. She has to be, she has a child she’s raising and protecting. She has to be strong and smart for him. She has to be the adult in their relationship... but she has those moments of vulnerability to remind you that she’s not an adult, she’s a teenager who was forced to grow up too fast and it hurts. 

In ep4 of TFS, when they’re in the caves after getting separated from the group, she and AJ get into an argument. She tells him that he’s just a child, and he throws it right back at her- “So are you.” and you can see it on her face... y’know? 

You want her to be happy, you want to give back the childhood that was taken from her at the start of the apocalypse, you want her to overcome every obstacle thrown her way.  You understand her feelings about Lee, why he meant so much to her and why she struggled to let him go even after accepting that he was dead. 

You remember that she is a teenager who makes mistakes, she doesn’t know everything, she fucks up. She’s doing everything she can to protect those she loves. You feel that she wouldn’t hesitate to give her life for the little boy she raised. She still has a lot of growing to do but you don’t doubt that she’s gonna do it. 

This Clementine? She has none of that. This Clementine doesn’t feel like the kind of person who could raise and protect a child, who would give her life to ensure that child was safe. You don’t get the vibe of a teen who had to grow up too fast in order to survive, someone who is clever in their survival tactics. This Clementine doesn’t know basic first aid. She was mad that Lee didn’t save her despite being dead. This is a Clementine that I can’t imagine breaking onto a boat full of kidnappers to get her friends back... and it’s not the amputation. 

TFS Clementine, amputation or not, she would’ve charged that damn boat herself if it meant saving those she loved. Comic Clementine couldn’t even be bothered to check and make sure Amos really was dead, it’s just easier to assume there was no way he survived... but then she turns around and insists they go back for Olivia, a character she has no real connection with. It doesn’t make sense. 

It’s just.... not her. I’m sorry, Tillie, but this characterization is okay at best, insulting at worst. 

Amos: I’m signing the adoption papers as we speak, he’s my son now

Amos is the best character in this book, and I’ve yet to find anyone who would disagree with that. Every review I’ve read/watched boils down to “this comic was bad but I liked Amos.”

Let’s be real- he was only made so likable so that we’d all be forced to feel something when he died. 

Before I get more into his character, I wanna nip something in the butt that I keep seeing even after this book’s release- Amos isn’t just white Louis. Amos isn’t a “hey can I copy your homework” of Louis’ character. The most they have in common is freckles and being the friendliest person in the group. 

A key difference being Louis uses cheerfulness as a shield to keep people at a safe distance from him where Amos is just genuinely cheerful in a very naïve and selfless way. 

Or uhh, @pi-creates​ put it much better when we were talking about it-

So no, Amos isn’t just a rehash of Louis, you can stop calling him the white Louis of the comic now, you’re only making it clear that you know nothing about Louis as a character when you do that. As much as I like Amos, he isn’t anywhere near as nuanced and layered as Louis is soooo stop. 

 Anyway, Amos! My dude! The only character I liked! The only character with an interesting personality, motivation, and a set goal he worked his ass off for.... only to fucking die.

Of all the characters to die in this damn thing, it would be Amos, wouldn’t it? Ugh. 

Amos grew up in an Amish community his entire life. When a man, presumably Tim, showed up to recruit workers to help build houses, Amos got to see the promised plane fly over his head and he describes it as the best day of his life. 

So, he worked to convince the council to allow him to go on his Rumspringa, they agreed, and here he is on the road. He fights with an axe, he owns 16 shirts, love his horse, and wears a fun hat. Overall positive, glass half full kinda guy. 

He wants to help people. It’s mentioned by the townspeople that he brings survivors there often, he saves that group of people while he and Clementine are on the road and even goes as far as to leave his carriage with them to go after Clementine and stay with her. 

 Amos trusts Clementine enough to leave Helen with her even though they’ve only known each other for only a week, but through the “montage” page you really get a vibe for how well they work together. I wish it wasn’t just a spread of moments but instead gave actual depth to their journey through dialogue, y’know? 

He finds Clementine funny [good for him, I wish I did, as well] and likes being around her. Also they share some looks that I feel should’ve been reserved for the love interest.... sooooo what the hell. 

When they meet the twins, Amos is quick to be like, “well actually no-” when they start talking about her being a liability for having only one leg, which was sweet. 

I felt so bad for him when Olivia just fucking shot his horse, too... he’s so upset and Clementine’s trying to calm him down, really sucks. 

Oh speaking of Olivia.... their “romance” makes no sense? There wasn’t any build up to it, the only hint we got that he maybe liked her was the comment about her having brighter eyes than Georgia, and her sticking with him when he was sick... but then she asks him to come behind the curtain with her, there’s a gasp, and I assume they were doin’ kissing stuff. Like... why? Why even bother? Unless you needed an excuse for Georgia to murder him? You couldn’t think of a better way to kill him off? So dumb.

He’s not all that complex or anything, just an all around good dude. His biggest flaws are his naivety and being too trusting of the wrong people [Georgia]. I mean.... he just wanted to fly in a plane. He wanted to help people, work hard, and fly in a plane. It’s hard to dislike him for that. 

When Amos died, it was the first time while reading this that I felt something other than “eh this is fine.” I’m still annoyed, pissed even. His death ruined a lot. It marked the start of a steep decline toward the ending. So much bullshit, and for what, y’know? 

In conclusion- Amos makes up an entire star of my rating, the only one worth reading this book for, and he’s supposedly dead now so that doesn’t bode well for Book Two. The only way I’ll forgive Tillie is if Amos comes back as a twist villain, angry that they didn’t even try to go after him. 

Ricca: wearing glasses doesn’t qualify as an entire personality, baby

Oh good, I get to talk about Glasses now.... 

Ricca is... fine. She’s not terrible, but not great. I feel like she had the foundation to be a cool character, but a lot about her falls flat. Her best moments are when she’s with both Clementine and Amos, but things become a little more awkward when it’s just her and Clementine.

She’s a smoker, she’s Jewish, she owns 36 pairs of glasses, has a drier sense of humor that works well with Amos, those two have a couple cute moments in this... uhhh let’s see, she threw a snowball at Clementine once, who overreacted and attacked her which prompted Amos to get between them and Ricca was like “whaaa don’t stop, I was just having fun,” so y’know.... flirting, I guess. 

She does come off as a bit whiney sometimes, which gets grating... especially when she gets butthurt at Clementine for stuff and then tries to act like “but whatever” about it. 

The reason she’s here is to learn how to build houses. That’s why she agreed to work out there, she wants to have the skills to start over, to rebuild what has decayed. 

But her big backstory reveal has to do with why she owns 36 pairs of glasses-

At the start of the outbreak, Ricca was with her brother. He looked out for her at first, but as time went on, he started using her as a “canary in a coal mine.” Basically whenever there was any potential danger ahead of them or if he got bored, he’d push her in to things like camps, caves, herds. She was just a little kid, and there was no where else for her to go... but then she got older, and when he sensed that she was going to leave him, he broke her glasses. 

Ricca had no way of surviving without him after that. She had no choice but to fight mostly blind and deal with her brother. It got to the point where she started wishing for death.... until she was out looking for food one day in a dark building and felt an entire wall of glasses-

-but I’m gonna ignore that for right now. She tried on every single pair, found one that worked, and then ditched him. She has no idea if he’s still alive or not. Wonder if he’ll come back as a surprise villain, who knows. 

Sooo... glasses are a big part of her character, which is fine. I like seeing characters with glasses, personally. There’s also an uncomfortable feeling seeing her talk about her brother and describing how she felt when she got to see clearly again only for the world to be so disgusting that she was sick for weeks. 

Unfortunately that’s about as deep as her character goes and I wanted more. 

She does want to go after Amos after he dies, which I appreciate, but Clementine tells her no. She gets shot, so that sucks for her. 

For being Clementine’s new love interest, and the fact that this is Tillie Walden’s work we’re reading, I expected her to be waaaaay more compelling but she didn’t hit to mark.

But to be fair, she’s going to be in Book Two so I’m assuming that with Amos dead until he comes back as a twist villain we’ll get to focus on her some more and her personality will shine a bit. 

Olivia: the left twin

Olivia is bland. 

A block of raw tofu has more meat than Olivia does. 

I have read this fucking book NINE times now, and the only thing I can tell you about Olivia is that she’s the “nice” twin, she did some smoochin’ with Amos in the background, and she’s super sad that her sister’s an asshole. 

Oh and she shot Helen without asking if they brought the horse for food or not, and then is like “oop sorry, I didn’t know, but it’s cool, I get it, my sister ate our hamster when this started.” 

If I was Amos, I’d tell her to the hell away from me, you shot my beloved pet! and I certainly wouldn’t let her be smoochin’ on me!

Anyway, she knows how to fly a plane, which upon looking back through the book, it turns out it was her uncle that taught her... so that’s cool. She’s the one who named the kitten, she... gets sad a lot? 

I’m sorry, but Olivia is so forgettable and it sucks. I want to be invested in these twins because they clearly have a troubled relationship, and Georgia steps all over her [sometimes physically] and it could’ve been interesting to see her deal with the conflict of staying vs leaving her sister..... kinda like the dilemma Ricca had with her brother..... were those supposed to be connected somehow....? parallels...? hhhnnnnngggggggg thinking too much into it-

ANYWAY... I honestly don’t have much to say about her. Maybe Book two will give her more characterization, but at this point the pothole in my driveway has more depth than she does so... lame.

Georgia: the right “evil” twin

Ugh.

Alright, no more beating around the bush, Georgia is a watered down version of Minerva... but where Minerva is a great, tragic character with good writing... Georgia sucks.

AND she killed off the best character in the book so she sucks extra hard!  Oh my god, she fucking sucks.

Like okay, the twins are here to build a community for their sick mother because the mom thinks this would be the perfect spot so they’re gonna build some goddamn houses in the middle of winter for her with the help of strangers... if that sounds like a dumb reason to you, then you’re right, it IS dumb but here we are. I don’t know what Georgia’s deal is, but she’s an asshole. That’s her entire character: ASSHOLE.

Right off the bat from meeting her and Olivia, you can tell she’s the baddie. You can tell where this is going, she’s going to be the one who turns on the group, maybe she’ll convince Olivia to her side and then she’s gonna try to murder everyone on this mountain called Killington.

She’s the one who tells Clementine that she won’t feed anyone who can’t pull their weight, immediately assuming Clementine can’t do shit because of her leg. She never smiles, never cracks a joke, is never kind to anyone, and apparently she’s super possessive and controlling of her sister. 

Also, she’s a goddamn moron because what did she think would happen when she killed Amos?? that Olivia would just be like “oh okay sorry” after you murdered her boyfriend and then gagged and tied her up while waiting for Clementine and Ricca to come for her so that you could also shoot them??

Y’know, when Minerva confronted the group on the bridge in order to kill Tenn, it made sense- she was bitten, dying, and had pretty much lost her goddamn mind after a year of trauma and brainwashing, being forced to kill her sister, and then losing her new “family” after Clementine blew up the boat. She was furious, out of control, bitten, covered in guts and completely out of her goddamn mind. There was no saving her from the start, and she had nothing left to lose.

Georgia’s just an asshole who doesn’t give us any real indication that she’s dangerous. She’s all talk and glares... then she comes back covered in blood after finding Tim soooo are we to assume that’s when she lost it? When she was like “I think killing Amos will make everything better,” or was it a sporadic, in the moment decision? 

In fact, why wasn’t she the one to shoot Helen then?? Why did you have Olivia, who is supposed to be a thing with Amos later, when you could’ve really established Georgia as the real threat when she shoots the horse and is like, “too bad, so sad” and then have Olivia come in and calm the situation? 

Establish that she’s possessive of Olivia early on, not when she’s two seconds from death and spouting, “He was gonna take you away from me! I had to kill him! I did it all for you!” nonsense...

There’s just so many little things that could’ve been tweaked or added to make her a better antagonist, but no, we’re left with nothing with irritation. 

God, Joan from ANF was a more layered villain than this and she was boring as hell.... ugh. 

Tim: where did he come from?? where did he go?? where did he come from, Cotton-Eye Joe???

Tim’s pretty chill, but a waste of a character. 

He comes outta nowhere to save Clementine and gets bit in the process, but he’s fine with it because it was bound to happen sooner or later, and at least he saved Clementine.

There isn’t too much to say about Tim that I haven’t already said. The scene with him was pretty good, but he’s not around enough to feel like an actual character. He’s just here to make sure Clementine feels bad that she got yet another person bit and to give some info on the twins. 

But he’s dead now so... cool. 

The “Romance”: if you squint hard enough, you might see it? 

I don’t understand why the marketing around this book put such an emphasis on the romance aspect. Remember when the trailer dropped and we got a look at Ricca and it was like “ooohhh new love~”

What love? There is no love, there’s no chemistry, there’s no soft sad uwu wlw love story here! What the hell?? Just gonna lie to me like that, huh?? 

Okay look... I went into this with an open mind about Ricca. Truly, I did. You know me, you know I’m a never gonna change my mind that clouis is the best, but I took both clouis and violentine and set them aside. I put them out of mind and let myself go into this wanting to ship Clementine and Ricca. I was ready for the sad girlfriends trying to survive this bullshit together with their token straight buddy. 

And then I came outta this wondering why Amos wasn’t the love interest? I mean, I know the answer to that so a better question: Tillie, why not just make Amos a girl and have Clementine fall for her instead? The foundation was set, there’s a lot of interesting things you could’ve done with that given Amos being Amish and all. They had a solid thing going on and the only reason I knew they weren’t going to end up together was because it was written by Tillie Walden, a queer woman who writes wlw. 

So I’m baffled at everything lacking between Clementine and Ricca! I mean, Tillie could be saving the meat of the romance for the next installments which fine, if that’s the case then I will happily keep an open mind and see if this relationship improves since right now? This ain’t it, chief. 

Lemme give you an example of something that could’ve been sweet, m’kay? After they have the generator fixed, Clementine asks Ricca why she always leans in so close to her. 

Ricca begins to explain that everything has started getting blurry... meaning her eyesight is getting worse and all these glasses she owns may not work for long. A scary thought, especially when you factor in her backstory with her brother. 

This feels like a set up for soft moment, something I wanted to see more of... only for it to be rudely interrupted by Amos being murdered. 

Like.... C’moooooon maaaaan...

UGH

There’s no warm fuzzy feelings here, and the only time I went, “they could be cute if it could get me invested” was the ending where Ricca is clinging to Clementine as Olivia boots up the plane and starts flying.... but even then, that moment is cut short because Clementine has to be all, “let’s show Amos the plane one more time.” 

They don’t kiss here, either. There isn’t a first kiss moment, there isn’t a confession scene, there isn’t even an admission of feelings on either side. Ricca calls her “baby” and now I guess they’re something? 

“Clementine, baby, don’t let me die here~”

Ugh. Do you know what I think of when I hear the words “Clementine” and “baby” in the same sentence? I think of the voicemail Clementine’s mother left in ep1 of S1: “Clementine, baby, if you can hear this, call the police... it’s 9-1-1... and we love you... we love you...” 

So excuse me if I don’t have a great response to that. 

Anyway, maybe it’ll improve with the next book which shouldn’t be too hard given all the nothing this book gave. 

The Lee Flashbacks/Nightmares: hey, remember season one? remember Lee? remember when Lee died and Clem was sad? do you remember??

Uuuuggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......

To their credit, these flashbacks are pretty loyal to the games as far as dialogue and setting, but the main point of them is for fans of the games to read this and be like “ohhh I remember Lee, he sparks joy!” and for new readers to have a face to a name when Clementine talks about him to Ricca. 

But they don’t do much to improve the story. The only time I appreciated how one tied into the story was when Clementine watched Amos fall. We see her and Lee on the train, and we get this dialogue:

“Ask me anything, Clementine.”

“Will the pain ever stop?”

because yeah... watching Amos die was pretty damn painful, ties in well. 

But other than that? Meh... which is crazy to say about LEE but that’s the comic for ya. 

Final Thoughts: I can’t believe I read this 9 times

What’s that thing called when you keep repeating a thing hoping it’ll be different but never is? Madness? Is that what I’m feeling right now? 

9 times, good god....

It wasn’t worth reading that many times and yet, here I am, a mad lass dissecting a comic I don’t like that remains unfaithful to a character I love. I watched and read so many interviews with Tillie, I kept tabs on reddit threads about this book, I pestered my discord buddies about it... can’t wait to do this two more times... 

In the end, this book isn’t good. I like a couple things, but the good doesn’t outweigh the bad. It’s definitely not canon with the games, no matter how hard Skybound whines that it is. 

I can’t recommend it to any of you. If you’re gonna read it, you can find the whole thing for free on youtube. If you wanna support Tillie Walden without supporting this series, check out her other works. I’d recommend On a Sunbeam or Spinning. 

btw did y’all hear they released the description of Book Two?

“Clementine and her new friends are rescued by an island community led by an enigmatic doctor called Miss Morro, but just as Clementine's scars are finally beginning to heal, she discovers dark secrets that threaten to tear her new life apart. Can Miss Morro be trusted? What about the rest of the islanders? And just how far will Clementine go to protect the ones she loves? Tilllie Walden's acclaimed trilogy continues! ”

I dunno how I’m gonna survive Book Two if I don’t even have Amos to look forward to..... guess Tillie’s just gonna have to make me like Ricca, huh? 

I also need to keep in mind that this IS a trilogy, so questions I have now and am annoyed about may get answered in the next book, Olivia might go from being stale white bread to a wonderful slick of cinnamon and raisin bread, and the romance may start existing... won’t know until June. 

No wait, excuse me, October... they’ve already pushed the release date later for the next one soooo that’s interesting. 

This is the part where I ask what you thought. What are your thoughts on Clementine Book One? I’m curious to know. Send an ask or leave a comment on this review. I know this was long but hey, thanks for sticking around to the end, it’s appreciated. 

Thanks for reading!  💚

#Clementine Book One Review #twdg clementine #twdg aj #twdg lee #twdg louis #twdg violet #twdg #twdg kenny #long post

[voidblacktea]

Christmas Classics: It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

When a frustrated businessman, George Bailey, becomes suicidal, an angel from heaven is sent to him.

Through George's trials and tribulations, we witness the resilience of the human soul and the transformative power of love, friendship, and the bonds that tie people together.

And let me tell you that I absolutely loved It's A Wonderful Life, I always appreciate a film with this kind of positive message - it's important that they exist in our world, and it was very important when it came out after WW2 ‐ but I can't help but think about where the line between complacency and gratitude is drawn.

Part of me wants to buy the all-too-good-to-be-true message and relish in the final act of the film, but, honestly, how often is life actually like that? Are films like this made to satiate those who never fulfilled their dreams and got stuck doing something they hated? To keep people from trying something they never thought was possible and break new ground? Maybe the message that life is a gift is enough because, realistically, we will never fulfill our wildest dreams and it's better to stick with that mentality for one's own sanity. Who knows.

I like how this film makes you (the audience) also feel like you have woken up from a terrible nightmare only to find yourself in familiar surroundings again.

I guess it's important to appreciate what you have but also not be afraid to take that step forward and try something new or be selfish from time to time. It's interesting watching this film from a modern lens. But these are just some random thoughts.

I think James Stewart delivers a performance for the ages as George Bailey, a man whose dreams are ALWAYS sacrificed for the betterment of his community. His heartfelt portrayal captures the essence of George's struggles and Frank Capra's direction explores the profound impact one life can have on countless others in a way that feels real, without turning it into extreme saccharine, while also evoking a range of emotions, from tears of joy to poignant introspection. This is a testament to his mastery of storytelling.

A great film that definitely makes you think and stays with you.

Clarence is a pimp by the way, I'm SO glad he got his wings. Attaboy!

#christmas classics #christmas movies #it's a wonderful life #james stewart #jimmy stewart #frank capra #donna reed #lionel barrymore #thomas mitchell #it's a wonderful life 1946 #old Hollywood #golden age hollywood

[ilikeyoshi]

no ok i'm gonna.

mentions of rape and trauma, including symptoms of reliving that trauma.

"many modes of fiction and storytelling aren't expected to trigger tag."

just because it's normalized doesn't mean it's the best or even a good practice.

"printed books don't include content warnings."

no, but what printed books usually have over fanfiction is resources like "does the dog die", which i personally think isn't good enough and that it would benefit (reasonable) readers AND writers if content warnings were encouraged and more normalized (readers so they aren't unexpectedly exposed to harm (except by assholes), and writers so they aren't condemned for heavy topics (except by assholes)).

fanfiction, except maybe the huge juggernaut fics, don't have the popularity to be recorded in the same fashion. (neither do lots of lesser known books, but i think this isn't a good thing for anyone and actually makes the need to normalize trigger warnings in the actual creation MORE important, not less.)

"the content warning 'chose not to tag' means there may be triggering content. it is not the same as 'no tags apply'."

yes, that's all true and fine. for fellow people with bad trigger responses: take note of this. 'chose not to tag' means there could still be triggering content, not that there isn't or won't be triggering content. this is a good thing to know for your safety.

and the biggest issue i have with that post: "readers are responsible for protecting themselves from triggering content."

yes! of course they are. but how are they supposed to do that without trigger tags? like, this is a genuine, non-gotcha question. i want to understand what these writers think triggers are and/or what they actually expect from readers.

and like, as a general "get this out of the way": i do believe there are people who are outraged for the wrong reasons and using this (and endless other controversies) as an excuse to 'justifiably' get mad, and those people are wrong, need to step away, and are hurting the issues they claim to care about. i ALSO believe it is disingenuous to ignore an issue or complaint out of hand just because it was delivered angrily, and that it's unfair to tone police someone who's been hurt. do i wish we could all express our issues calmly and politely? yes. do i think that's realistic or even right? not really. do i think it's important to listen to the heart of the issue as best as we can anyway? very much.

the problem i have with sentiments like "protecting your mental health is your own responsibility" is WHEN they're coupled with sentiments like "it's NOT my responsibility to provide you with the tools TO protect your mental health". the idea of "just close the tab" or "just hit the back button" falsely attributes the experience of being re-exposed to trauma ("triggered") as simply upsetting or unpleasant but not debilitating. this is not what happens.

traumatic triggers are sometimes straight forward: "rape depicted in fiction triggers trauma responses." a lot of times they're less straight forward. "mentions or implications of off-screen rape trigger trauma responses." and sometimes they're completely impossible for an outsider to predict. "omelettes trigger trauma responses (about rape)."

the last example is a real one, paraphrased from an article written by a woman who was raped. she describes (again, paraphrased) that "the morning after, she couldn't/didn't want to believe it happened, so she went through motions of normalcy by making her rapist omelettes for breakfast". it isn't that eggs are traumatic in and of themselves, but that eggs trigger(!) memories and traumatic responses about the rape. it is a trigger by association.

obviously, and as i recall she says this herself in her article, there is no world in which "eggs" is a trigger tag 99% of the population uses. it is a very obscure trigger that requires context to even fully understand how it's a trigger in the first place.

this, i think, is what all survivors of trauma and/or mental illness with obscure (and even non-obscure) need to accept: we WILL be triggered throughout our lives. we cannot remove these things from existence, and it is for our own best interest to develop safe and healthy coping mechanisms to help us through trigger episodes, as well as remove ourselves from the situation as quickly as possible.

i suspect this is what these writers are trying to say too—and it's GOOD advice. it is.

however... i find it, to be perfectly frank, callous and dismissive to suggest that writers—or any kind of creators—are irrelevant in this issue when they write knowable triggering content (NOT eggs, but things like rape) and do not take incredibly simple, easy, 2-to-5 second measures to warn for that content. i fear they do not understand (or do not respect) what being triggered—really, actually triggered DOES to a person.

the symptoms of trauma triggers are vast, and no two people experience them the same way, but some common and/or significant symptoms include: flashbacks, delusions, fight or flight response, vomiting, fainting, and suicidal ideations. the effects of these symptoms can result in extreme distress, exhaustion, mental illness, physical inability to go to work/school, damaged relationships, serious injury and death.

triggers are not "upsetting". they are debilitating and even life-threatening. and in my experience, they get demonstrably worse when the person experiences them AFTER establishing trust or interest in the triggering thing; as in, after they're 3, 5, 10 chapters into a fanfic, when a trigger warning before chapter one could have hurt them incredibly less, if at all. this has happened to me.

no, it is not a writer's fault that someone is traumatized or mentally ill, and no, i wouldn't hold a writer accountable (socially or legally) if someone died after having a traumatic response to content in their fic.

but i think it is so... weird? that some writers who KNOW this about trauma and mental illness are not immediately compelled to add a few words to their tags to prevent this from happening to someone. sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, it reminds me of healthy people who weren't masking for covid, despite the fact that if they were infected and asymptomatic, they could expose the elderly or immunocompromised to infection, which could KILL that person. yeah, you didn't hurt them, their trauma did—and yeah, you didn't kill them, their infection did—but how can you ACTUALLY feel perfectly comfortable not doing the bare minimum to protect another human being? how does it not eat you up inside that people might be dead as a ripple effect of an incredibly easy task you chose not to do?

i sincerely am trying to understand it, but i don't think i can. as a person who has been traumatized in multiple ways, both well-known ways and obscure ways, i cannot IMAGINE knowing there's a way to prevent someone else from experiencing the horrors (and dangers) of reliving it and just Not Doing It. especially when it's SO easy.

i see a lot of concerns about "spoiling the story" via trigger tags, and i can't help but think... that's not really how it works? i don't think "there's a rape in this story" is a spoiler, i think it's a content warning. i think if you're prioritizing spoilers over someone's mental and physical safety, that's weird as hell.

BUT, if it's really that big of an issue for you or your story, i have an alternative, equally simple suggestion: link to a google doc that lists all trigger warnings (that you know to apply; again, i'm not asking you to know one person in the world has an "eggs" trigger, and no other reasonable person is either), and tell people "this link contains trigger warnings that may include spoilers".

i think it's, frankly, a little entitled to say you won't trigger tag your fanfic because of spoilers. i think people should have the ability to make informed decisions, in advance, about reading your story. i think they should be allowed to spoil your story for themselves for literally any reason, ESPECIALLY to protect themselves from triggering content. this IS what people do for mainstream media, this IS what "does the dog die" does. this IS an established long-standing norm in public fiction.

as i said, i fully believe there are outraged idiots out there who don't actually care about the issue and just want to get their brownie points for being mad and aggressive. i do not think it's fair or reasonable to dismiss the issue entirely because idiots are co-opting it. there are idiots on every side of every issue ever. they do not lessen the merit of an issue just because they're loud and awful; they are living straw men. we cannot stop them, including by forsaking the issue they're co-opting.

and what really bothers me about that mindset is that there are people—genuinely harmed people—who may not express the issue politely or calmly, but their experience is still important and they're still saying important things. we HAVE to accept that people, right AND wrong, are going to tell us their side of things angrily sometimes, and we have to be willing to listen to what they're saying. you close yourself off to a TON of growth and opportunity for compassion if you refuse to acknowledge or respect other people's pain because they 'expressed it wrong'.

and you're right, no one can force you to do it. i just don't understand how you possibly justify not WANTING to do it without being, at best, ignorant, and at work, just... really selfish.

#HOUGH. ough. ok it's out of my system. #this isn't a threat or anything btw but i do unfollow anyone who thinks like this. #because. y'know. i understand that by thinking like this it means none of your posts (creative or otherwise) are provably safe for me. #like i'm saying this so you don't think it's for another reason. not as a “i will NEVER shop here again” gotcha. #yoshi talks

[masthya]

I only know taylor swift as someone who sucks ass at writing lyrics, what are the banger lyrics im missing??

lmao i totally get that. I think it will always be a bit of a personal preference thing, just like some ppl love some writing styles which others cant stand, same with lyrics.

I personally love the lyric writing that tells a good story i can see in my head, and the song creates an atmosphere which you can touch and even smell. I think Taylor's strength is in her storytelling, which shines through especially in folklore and evermore. I personally love "seven" ("Please picture me/In the weeds/Before I learned civility/I used to scream ferociously"), august ("To live for the hope of it all/Cancel plans just in case you'd call"), peace ("Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?"), "illicit affairs" ("Leave the perfume on the shelf/That you picked out just for him/So you leave no trace behind/Like you don't even exist"), "champagne problems" ("Sometimes you just don't know the answer/'Til someone's on their knees and asks you"), "cowboy like me" ("Perched in the dark/Telling all the rich folks anything they wanna hear/Like it could be love/I could be the way forward/Only if they pay for it"), "'tis the damn season" ("We could call it even/You could call me babe for the weekend/'Tis the damn season, write this down/I'm stayin' at my parents' house/And the road not taken looks real good now"), "ivy" ("Oh, goddamn/My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand/Taking mine, but it's been promised to another/Oh, I can't/Stop you putting roots in my dreamland/My house of stone, your ivy grows/And now I'm covered in you").

Now every album she releases has its misses and its hits. I don't love "Lover" that much bc it's a bit too happy poppy for me, though the song "Lover" itself tells a very palpable feeling. Other songs I like are "All Too Well" ("And you call me up again just to break me like a promise/So casually cruel in the name of being honest"), "Dear John" ("Long were the nights when/My days once revolved around you/Counting my footsteps/Praying the floor won't fall through again"), "Back to December" ("It turns out freedom ain't nothin' but missin' you/Wishin' I'd realized what I had when you were mine"), "The Story of Us" ("I'd tell you I miss you, but I don't know how/I never heard silence quite this loud"), "Clean" ("Ten months sober, I must admit/Just because you're clean don't mean you don't miss it"), "Begin Again" ("And you throw your head back laughing like a little kid/I think it's strange that you think I'm funny 'cause he never did"), "Don't Blame Me" ("Don't blame me, love made me crazy/If it doesn't, you ain't doin' it right/Lord, save me, my drug is my baby/I'll be usin' for the rest of my life"), "Delicate" ("We can't make any promises/Now can we, babe?/But you can make me a drink").

Now many people have been dissing the latest album's cringey lyrics for a while, and while I hate them too (god the vigilante one is such a skip its unreal), i actually like some songs with cringey lyrics. "Anti-hero" really grew on me bc it's Taylor self-analising and talking about how she is her own worst critic, which is something we all experience, and I think she made it in a fun self-deprecating way in the song that still delivers the message. other songs in the album which i love and dont have those kinds of cringe lines are "you're on your own, kid" ("'Cause there were pages turned with the bridges burned/Everything you lose is a step you take"), "Lavander Haze" ("The only kind of girl they see (only kind of girl they see)/Is a one-night or a wife"), "High Infidelity" ("Do you really want to know where I was April 29th?/Do I really have to chart the constellations in his eyes?"), "Would've, Could've, Should've" ("If I was some paint, did it splatter/On a promising grown man?/And if I was a child, did it matter/If you got to wash your hands?") (tbh I love all the lyrics in this song it's my fave atm).

Sorry for the long post! I really feel like Taylor's best lyrics are hidden away in her albums many times, but I do get how she gets called a good lyricist, because she is good at telling stories in them. I believe many people look at her stuff from a biased perspective most of the time bc of the way the media has portrayed her in part, and also bc she got a lot of hate from misogynists when she was young and it stayed around as mindless hate/disregard. She isnt the greatest ever but she's earned her reputation as a lyricist imo.

#my asks

[swiftie-erin]

Here's my first-listen review of TTPD and TTPD: The Anthology!

disclaimer: i broke down the rankings per album because trying to do them all together would've been a hell of a journey and would've taken more than one day / been more than just a "first listen." and per usual, take the songs at the bottom with a grain of salt because all of them are so close and even the ones at the bottom feel like they should be in the top ten

Overall review: wow, this was a lot to process. I keep trying to think about whether I like TTPD or TTPD: The Anthology better, but honestly I can't choose. so much heart-wrenching pain, such beautiful lyrics, and incredible reflections on love, loss, inner turmoil, what-ifs, and using writing as an outlet. this is absolutely going to be on repeat through spring and summer!

1. Fortnight - lowkey would've loved more Post Malone on this song but this is one of my faves!!

2. TTPD - I love the storytelling and I love the way Taylor says "TTPD" and "nofuckingbody" hehe

3. My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys - the imagery?? "queen of sand castles he destroys"??? omg this is one of my faves.

4. Down Bad - Love this song sonically and love hearing Taylor say fuck LOL. this is my fave song i think!

5. So Long, London - 🥺🥺 "i'm pissed off that you let me give you all that youth for free" gives me goosebumps, i love this song

6. But Daddy I Love Him - tbh good for you taylor, get em. your life is your own and only you get to tell yourself what you can or can't do, or who you can or can't love!

7. Fresh Out the Slammer - the lyrics are so good and the bridge transition is so beautiful!!!

8. Florida!!! - same bbg, we all need a dose of escapism once in a while (also i love the 🍃 mention hehe). fuck me up florida!!!

9. Guilty as Sin? - this is the song I pre-claimed and tbh it does not disappoint at all!

10. Who's Afraid of Little Old Me? - the guitar, so good omg. the emotion in taylor's voice is raw and the female rage is palpable, love this song.

11. I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) - love the ending and love the chorus!!

12. loml - ouchie. the lyricism and that last chorus, wow.

13. I Can Do It With a Broken Heart - we love a good depressive pop song!! "all of the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting 'more!'" and the click track!!

14. The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived - men ain't shit, taylor. what'd he do? I'll deliver your message LET ME AT EM-

15. The Alchemy - i'm so glad taylor is in a better place 🥹 it truly gives "karma is the guy on the chiefs coming straight home to me"

16. Clara Bow - such a beautiful song sonically, shows both the hope and hardships of wanting to be in the spotlight

17. The Black Dog - the second verse, OUCHIE. the bridge? i've died. i love this song more than i expected to.

18. imgonnagetyouback - i love the chorus and actually the entire song tbh

19. The Albatross - i'm very intrigued with the tale we're being told. people truly will read something about you, believe it, then crucify you for it.

20. Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus - such a beautiful, sad song. what-ifs (especially for people like taylor and i who have anxiety) can be so, so much more heart-wrenching than knowing

21. How Did It End? - the lyrics. the sound. everything unspoken. how everyone wants to know what happened but she's not even sure herself.

22. So High School - so goddamn cute!!! i couldn't be happier that taylor is happy and thriving with trav 🥹🫶

23. I Hate It Here - "when they found a better planet, only the gentle survived" BESTIE i wish. i'm there right with you, girl. the world is awful and living in your mind often is easier and better. also, i too read the secret garden as a child hehe

24. thanK you alMee - omg, this song. taylor is truly coming to terms with what gave her scars and acknowledging it and moving forward. i'm so fuckin proud of her.

25. I Look In People's Windows - "i'm afflicted by the not knowing" ugh me too girlie. the anxiety, the contemplation, the fantasies; i'm glad neither of us are alone in knowing these feelings all too well

26. The Prophecy - i love this song 🥺 it's one of my faves. it reminds me of Foolish One, it's so desperate and hopeful at the same time.

27. Cassandra - i'm a greek/roman history slut so i love this already. i love the intertwined story that she creates, it's powerful.

28. Peter - bruh this song makes me want to cry. Betty has turned off her porch light 🥺

29. The Bolter - I love the way this song sounds! the first chorus sets the stage so well and the chorus is lowkey catchy

30. Robin - precious lyrics about keeping children innocent so they can enjoy their childhood while they have it 💗

31. The Manuscript - as a poet and writer myself, i relate to this song so much. writing truly is an outlet for processing emotions and at the end of it, all of those feelings are part of the writing and no longer yours. you're free.

#taylor swift #taylurking #ttpd #the tortured poets department #ts ttpd #ttpd era #ttpd the anthology #taylor swift ttpd

[yurisorcerer]

A friend said yesterday that I seem like I have a complicated relationship with Ishura. This is untrue, I think Ishura sucks but has a few bright spots; that's not complicated. If there's a show I have a complicated relationship with this season it's Metallic Fucking Rouge. What, like, IS this show? Actually? When you strip away all the minutiae and all attempts at allegory, political or otherwise, what is this story *about*? Like, at its core?

With three episodes left on the clock (assuming this isn't a secret two-cour show, but I'd be very surprised if that we the case) I'm still not sure I could tell you.

Metallic Rouge has all these big-brain classic sci-fi influences that it very clearly wants to integrate into its sense of storytelling. That's why there are two competing factions of aliens who we don't really see much of until this episode, that's why there's this whole human oppressor / humanoid robot oppressed class dynamic that the show doesn't quite know what to do with, that's probably a good chunk of why it hops between planets at all. At the same time, this is also a 12-episode anime that needs to deliver solid fundamentals to actually keep people invested. Most people are not me, and will not watch an entire 12-episode series just to figure out what the fuck it's trying to do. I think a lot of people, given how willfully opaque Metallic Rouge is, would / will / have just found it frustrating. The action sequences have been good at staving that off, and I think this episode's was maybe the best yet, but I'm not sure it's enough.

That aside, yeah, this is a series that's worn a lot of hats. It's been a toku-inspired action series, a story about the aftermath of war and the mechanics of oppression, a trippy dream sequence, a whodunnit, etc. Now, in its last leg, it's become like....I don't even know, one of those 90s sci fi movies with CGI aliens? It's been better at some of those than others and I actually think this new turn fits it surprisingly well, but I am left with a frustration and I kind of wish the show would just stick to something.

That said; I can see the counterargument, right? You know, compared to most bad anime that have aired or will air this year, Rouge's problem is not that it has NO ideas, it's that it has TOO MANY, and doesn't execute them well enough. In my head, I've kind of been comparing the series to Lycoris Recoil, but they actually have opposite problems; LycoReco couldn't find enough solid ground to stretch for a full 12 episode cour, and ended up showing its ass when its underlying politics turned out to be embarrassingly basic. Metallic Rouge by comparison is hyperactive and unable to follow through on any of its ideas. I wouldn't be surprised if, rather than turning out to have *basic* politics as I've previously wondered, it just turns out to have none. Who needs themes when you have giant spaceships and can reveal your main character is an alien?

Or is it, right? That's the obvious thing, there are still three more episodes. Maybe, somehow, someway, it will find a way to tie all of these disparate elements together in its final quarter and I'll look like a fucking idiot for having ever doubted it. I would honestly love that, I can count on my hands the number of times a show I was frustrated with turned out BETTER than I thought it would, but it's always a really lovely and cathartic thing. But I'm pretty skeptical, I don't know, the fact that the series used so much charged imagery early on and has largely just chosen to discard it makes the entire thing feel poorly thought-out. I am still, in spite of myself, mostly enjoying the show for what it is; I love the action sequences, the incredibly strange bits of hyper-expressive and overfluid animation (seriously, look at this)

and I even kind of love how up its own ass it is, but I think there's a distinction to be drawn there between something being *entertaining* and being *good.* Metallic Rouge is very entertaining, but it's also hugely frustrating and at this point I would be VERY surprised if my main takeaway from it once it's over isn't just that it had a lot of potential it didn't live up to.

I guess we'll see! Who knows.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I saw someone else mention this in the tag but credit to this show for being fairly normal about a plural system. I hope they survive the rest of the show, Alice/Aes are honestly some of my favorite characters.

#metallic rouge #spoilers #yurisorcerer talks about media #once again if you like the show and see this in the tag like. Sorry. I am not trying to annoy anybody I mostly tag this for my own benefit #also they are mostly just hot-reads of my immediate thoughts after finishing an episode and I generally need to sit with something for a #while to really know how I feel about it so like pls don't take this stuff seriously #pls

[shadowthief78]

Genshin spoilers!! Complaining about the first part of 4.0 Archon quests under the cut.

I hate the Traveler in this part ngl. They're so incredibly inconsistent about the Fatui and I'm really mad at the weird logical somersaults the writers seem to expect us to do to justify their actions. Prime example:

We see our old friend (LITERALLY IN THIS VERY QUEST IN THE GAME DESCRIBED AS A FRIEND) Childe again and he drops some lore bombs, okay cool whatever. We can be pals with the guy who tried to murder us, steal Zhongli's Gnosis, destroy all of Liyue Harbor, and keeps popping up with his evil organization on our journey to find our sibling because his little brother is cute and he's needed for lore stuff. Okay, that's fine.

But what the fuck did Lyney do? He welcomed us to Fontaine, saved us from the Hydro Archon trying to throw hands, and has been nothing but welcoming and generous and kindhearted (only asking us to deliver some bags and pick a few flowers in return, literally nothing since he pretty much bailed us out of jail) and we drop him and Lynette like hot potatoes once we find out that (*checks notes*) when he was an orphaned kid and his sister got kidnapped, he turned to the only source of protection there was which happened to be a Harbinger who wants to save his homeland and protect people in similar situations to him.

And furthermore, he had good reasoning for concealing his involvement with the House of Hearth, which he explains: He didn't want it to come between the friendship with the Traveler and it wasn't relevant to the trial. Okay, I understand being upset that ge didn't mention it because Focalors did use it against us in the trial, but the complete about-face in demeanor was so shocking I spent the rest of the quest struggling to reconcile what just happened. And we still have to give him the cold shoulder after that? We can't even apologize or talk it out like mature and emotionally well adults, even?

What??????

The whiplash I got from this genuinely made me absolutely loathe the Traveler for being so unbelievably selfish and full of double-srandards. I need to know what the fuck whever wrote this was thinking because, good GOD, consistent characterization is one of the mostimportant and basic elements of good storytelling and the only way that this is any way consistent is for the Traveler to be a horrible human being and have such a skewed sense of morals that we might as well give up and join the Abyss already. Actually, screw that, we're probably going to make even the Abyss Order worse.

Furthermore, if we hate the Fatui so much, why not just abandon Lyney? Finishing the trial just felt like some hopeless grasping at straws so the writers could say, "Look!!! The Traveler is a Good Person(TM) because they didn't abandon a frend in need!!" but... we did? We absolutely did just ghost them after? Your argument holds not a single drop of water in the Hydro nation because your actions have proved the exact contrary point? I really hope Fontaine has better engineers than you are as writers because if this is all they got, then you're better off loading everyone in the nation into leaky fishing boats and hand-paddling to Inazuma than trying to build any dams to stop that prophecy, just saying.

Overall, I'm devoid of any emotion but disdain and also disappointed in Mihoyo for what they buchered, because the Sumeru story shows they have the capability to write competent and thematically consistent quests and they really went in so strong with the some of the other stuff and totally just dropped the ball here. I haven't gone to celebration tea with Demiselle (?) yet because I'm extremely disappointed and my immersion and emotional investment are not simply broken but in shards on the floor, so.

Maybe I'm biased because I like Lyney, but I also really just wanted to get that off my chest. I'd like to hear any thoughts other people have, if you agree or disagree and why :)

#puffin says stuff #genshin impact #lyney #fontaine #spoilers #anyone have any thoughts?

[kleenexwoman]

What are Mango Languages?

A Duolingo type company headquartered near me. They had a position for a copywriter ("storyteller" they called it) and I was so excited. I thought that spreading the word of an app that would teach people to communicate with each other would be just fantastic.

As a polytheistic pagan, I had been happily figuring out how to actually communicate with multiple Divine presences in a way that made sense to me (...think about 'em really hard as people? I dunno, I have a really vivid imagination), and was doing the equivalent of going through every number in my contacts and sending them a "New phone! It sends pictures now!" text with a picture of me holding my cat.

So I had confirmed my broship with Odin, my sisship with Artemis, decided that the goddess Diana was not actually for me (they are vastly different at this point and may have always been), and was doing stuff like having Bastet help me communicate with my cat (it was great).

One day I'm hanging out with my now-wife talking halal meat (it's good stuff) and she suggests simmering some baby goat in goat milk.

I start to say "That sounds go--" and then a Voice from the Heavens resounds in my ear going "That was the ONE combination I SPECIFICALLY asked people to avoid" and I start to feel super sad for the baby goat.

And I say, "Honey, the G-d of Abraham just asked me not to. Think I'm gonna. Not."

And she's like "ugh are you gonna turn frum"

And I'm like, "I don't have the executive function for that. Just not the goat meat with the milk. Feels weird to me."

She's worried I'm about to become a zealot, I'm just asking her to make her goatmeat gyros with the goat feta on a day we don't hang out, or at least brush her teeth really good before she kisses me. I can deal with not eating one particular combination, especially when it would honestly be pretty gamy. Lamb with chevre is still fine.

So I put the screws to Adonai, because motherfuck has a lot to answer for in my opinion.

I see this job for Mango Languages and I think it's a perfect fit for me. And hey, Who offers to help me out? All I have to do is separate my consumption of milk and meat by three hours. Not even six. Just half the time, because something about my metabolism. He's willing to be flexible.

Aight cool. I do that for a few days. It's not super hard if I pay attention.

I get a callback, and they have decided that there is actually no need for the position. I Don't Get The Job so hard that the position itself is eliminated.

"?????" I ask Adonai, who shrugs and says, "Look, I tried My best, y'know?"

MOTHERFUCK, YOU PUNK-ASS BITCH. UGH.

So now I ask Odin for things instead.

Odin delivers on His agreements. Sometimes He delivers so hard it's incredibly inconvenient, but BOY do they show up. You just want to experience His Presence in the Flesh? Get ready for a veritable stream of crazy and/or high desperate folks knocking at your door asking for help. Or coming up to you in parking lots asking for help or money. Or just wanting to have a random, insane, highly pleasant and enlightening conversation with you.

(A roommate asked for that. And we all got That. For the record, I felt the promise has been delivered upon, but the roommate was consistently unsatisfied.)

Anyway, I'm sure that Mango Languages has a fine product, but I would not know for sure because they did not hire a copywriter to tell me about it.

(And I still get real pointed at the G-d of my fathers for, well, anything I can think of. Just because you can communicate with a god doesn't mean that you are obligated to be nice to them.)

#personal #paganism

[majorbaby]

re: the tv tropes page it is SO bad. full on fanon being included in the character page (not even the ymmv page), like y'all. have your headcanons but please stop forcing them on everyone else

yeah in most cases i’m skeptical that ‘forcing headcanons’ on people is actually a thing that happens because 99% of the time that grievance could be sufficiently addressed if people would only curate their feeds so they see the content they wanna see, but this might be a legitimate example of such a thing. 

it is annoying because tvtropes is a great tool for understanding the technical aspects of storytelling and getting a general overview of a show and how content-making techniques can help deliver messaging (e.g. lighting, sound, sfx, camera angles). i’ve been using it for that purpose for years and i’ve found only recently that i’ve been encountering this problem more and more. 

it’s been a while since i looked at the MASH page because i’ve basically written it off, but if memory serves the character pages were pretty unreliable. it could be that people have are projecting their personal interpretations/feelings on the show (any reading will have some amount of this) but some of the reaches on there are dishonest about the text.

MASH is a show that lacks continuity and is full of gags. it is also a show from another completely different era of television and the world. without some knowledge of that time, your interpretation might be lacking. many episode titles are puns or a play on an existing piece of media from the first half of the 20th century - but you rarely see that addressed nowadays in the fandom because we’re (mostly) a different generation. there’s a difference between saying ‘radar is psychic’ and ‘a running gag on the show is that radar is psychic’ - does that mean MASH has a canonical magical realism aspect to it? no, of course not. but i sure as hell could find a way to make it seem that way to a person who has never seen it just by being a bit creative, telling half-truths and remixing things i know to be true about the show - aka, writing an AU. it’s like that “mash is haunted” post floating around on tumblr - it’s great in the format that it’s in, but on tvtropes, production flubs need to be called what they are - flubs - and not “trapper is haunting the OR” - those are the rules of engagement on TV tropes. 

the rest under a this cut because i talk specifically about one of my most be-loathed myths that the MASH tv tropes page seems to want me to believe: hawkeye the “canonical” CSA/rape survivor 

i say ‘let me leave shipping out of this’ a lot because i do get the sense that if i don’t give non-shippy examples of this happening that it’s valid for people to think i’m projecting a shipping bias onto my argument because a lot of fandom discourse is frankly, about shipping. so here: something I remember really rubbing me the wrong way about the MASH tv tropes page was how much it seemed to insist that Hawkeye was a CSA survivor. 

i am not saying that this is not viable or that it is a bad reading or even that i disagree with it as an interpretation of the source material, but framing it like it’s an undeniable part of his character that other characters acknowledge is just - it’s not there! and if canonical portrayals of survivors are important to you, I don’t see how pretending that Hawkeye is a CSA survivor and trying to convince other people of that before they’ve even watched the show is “good representation”. 

it gives way for all sorts of other misunderstandings of the show, for example, his “loose morals” around sexuality which are first and foremost about his being anti-establishment, that is something which is key to his character and tbh if you subscribe to the HC that hawkeye is a survivor of abuse then his being a scrappy, unconventional male lead who turns his nose up to traditional masculinity only enriches that HC in my opinion. 

#csa mention #rape mention #mash #tvtropes #hawkeye pierce #replies #sorry for the essay i just was using this to work out my feelings about the whole thing #anyway - i agree with you anon #i just have specific complaints about this practice #majorbaby.txt #re: mash

[firstelevens]

3, 39, 41!

3. What are some tropes or details that you think are very characteristic of your fics?

The big ones are food as a shorthand for/demonstration of love, people reading emotion or tension from the set of someone else's shoulders (I can't account for this; it just happens in every fic), and explorations of caretaker-type characters and what goes on in their heads! But in working on this latest WIP, which is the longest fic I've written, I'm realizing that I truly LOVE a tripartite list? That's definitely a structure that I use too often, but I'm very attached.

39. Is any aspect of your writing process inspired by other writers or people? If so, who?

I honestly don't know if I can be said to have a writing process; mostly I just fling myself headfirst into something with an outline clutched in hand and hope it works out? But for a long time I was VERY bad at letting other people read things I'd written, and I now have a few dear friends who are both very good writers AND understand how to deliver feedback that I can actually put into practice. I don't always ask people to look over my stuff, but having the option has definitely helped me be better at the "just get words on a page and fix them later" part of writing.

41. Link a fic that made you think, “Wow, I want to write like that.”

Meagan I am so sorry but I am about to compliment you to your face directly. I don't think we were even friends yet, but I still remember exactly where I was when I clicked on "New Game" and I read the whole entire thing in one sitting even though I had THREE 4000 word essays due in less than a week.

It was funny and tender and the character voices rang SO TRUE, and you used nonlinear storytelling to such beautiful effect, and YOUR PROSE! You have such a gift for dialogue and rhythm, and you're so good at taking a concept that sounds silly at first and just weaving layers of depth into it.

Truly, I read that fic and then instead of working on my undergrad dissertation, I just sat there and stared out the window wanting very badly to drop everything until I'd figured out how to do what you did.

(And now we're friends! Sometimes it's cool to meet your heroes, folks!)

#zainab does ask meme things #avocadomooon

[scary-senpai]

Verily, old sport, did you not think to engage Garou’s parents before you set out with the explicit intent to kill their son with your bare hands? I know, I know, it’s complicated, but—

I am lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering about Bang’s relationship with Garou’s parents: if Bang called Garou’s parents after he was expelled, or updated them during the subsequent Hero Hunt. How much they talked about Garou’s behavior and progression at the dojo, the good and the bad. If Bang ever considered what he would say to Garou’s parents, if the worst-case scenario ever came to pass. Was he planning to have someone else break this news, if he delivered any news at all?

And yes, there was the caveat about how “unlike Garou’s mother, this actress seems kind.” I can’t help but think back to one of my CogPsych classes: the information you have is the information you have, but we (as humans) have a storytelling brain, and we tend to fill in the blanks as we see them. Consider an old-fashioned answering machine: if you have no missed calls, it means no one called you. It doesn’t mean nobody loves you, or that nobody thought about you, or even that nobody called you because technical glitches are a thing—and yet we read into these small things, constantly, with ourselves and others.

Garou’s parents didn’t come to his detention means that they didn’t come to his detention. It’s not a good sign, but it’s also a small breadcrumb in a large context. Was Garou expecting them? Did Garou tell them? Did he even want them there on the first place? Are they okay? Are they even alive? Life is hard, especially in the OPM-verse. We’ll come back to that.

“But unlike Garou’s mother, this actress seems kind.” Seems kind. We haven’t met Garou’s mother, but when it comes to the OPM-verse, I have rarely experienced a first impression I did not come to retract or regret.

How do Garou’s parents feel about Bang? Did they know that he was tasked with taking Garou down by any means necessary? How do they feel about that? Would that, perhaps, inform their decision to attend his detention? Do they feel like Garou is in good hands, and that Bang has the situation under control, and that their son might be embarrassed or ashamed?

When I was 23, I got arrested. I didn’t call my parents, because I didn’t want to worry them and I was humiliated. I called my roommate instead, because I needed help but also I was miserable and terrified, and I didn’t want to involve more people than I absolutely had to, and because I didn’t get in legal trouble for anything fun (like a raucous party) or noble (like civil disobedience)—all I did was forget to take an exceptionally pointy keychain out of my purse before I went through airport security. When my parents asked why I showed up their house a day later than expected, I just told them “I missed my flight.” It felt really freeing, actually, to realize I could set more extensive boundaries as an adult.

Going back to Garou’s detention… Was it physically possible for his parents to make it? Can they afford to take off work, if they can take off work at all? does he have other siblings and if so, do they have reliable childcare? What’s their transit situation? OPM-verse is on literally on fire, and a huge chunk of Z City (and beyond) took damage. Are they in a disaster area? Perhaps they are also frantically wading through a tide pool for what remains of their home.

It’s not that I dislike Garou and Bangs relationship, I actually really enjoy thinking about them and i appreciate that their dynamics are multifaceted. Parent / child relationships are pretty much the stickiest wicket you can get, people spend lifetimes trying to untangle that stuff.

Maybe it’s just my own baggage again, but I feel like every interaction between Bang and Garou has a bittersweet edge to it. They always seem so close and so far from one another: Garou goes running from situations just to prove that someone is looking, he is hungry for compliments that he compulsively refutes, and he constantly aches for a helping hand that he can make some great show of refusing. Of course that would inform (and subsequently complicate) his family dynamics. Garou often brags about how little he cares, or how much he resents those he’s close to, and the gets into trouble when people take him at his word.

Bang is similar: he desires close relationships that give the illusion of distance, that’s why he hems and haws about being a lonely old man until someone caves and invites him to hot pot.

All in all, Bang and Garou want to get close to people without admitting that they are close to people (plausible deniability, and all that). In this way, they understand each other—even though their interactions consist of innumerable insults and jeers, the affection is palpable (albeit largely unspoken). At the same time, it’s not sustainable—especially for Garou, who is isolated and vulnerable and needs a support network to move forward, and still seems to think he can accomplish that by fighting. But Bang and Garou’s communication style isn’t a problem for the two of them, and as a result they’re just reinforcing unfortunate behaviors in each other rather than encouraging growth. I dunno, man. I’ve been awake for two goddamn days.

Edited to add: somebody dropped me an ask about Garou’s parents ☺️ I talked mostly about my OCs but also parenting and mental health and family dynamics. It was a fun time.

#one punch man #opm #garou #garou opm #opm manga #spoilers #manga spoilers #meta #bang #bang opm #I went to social work school and it ruined me in a good way #insert standard disclaimer about that and also the 7 years I spent working under a toxic mentor #who taught me whatever the equivalent is of flowing water crushed rock but for other peoples emotions

[fairlyabookie]

Voice

Author's note: Day 21 of February prompts! Enjoy!

Many a folk whisper about a tale of a mystical creature whose singing could be heard late at night. Some say its voice can subdue even the fretful babies to sleep, soothe a lost sailor’s nerves, or a voice to sing along in the late hours of the night. Many surmise a siren or a ghost still lingering in the human realm, searching for a lost love from years before. Such romantic notions would entertain the locals and travelers, insinuating an anecdote native to the town itself. 

Vargas, a well-known youth with a penchant for helping his people, on the other hand, wholeheartedly didn’t believe in such fantasies. Rather, he’d simply dismiss the legend as nothing but an old wives’ tale. In the dim streets of the town, he saunters his way home, about to conclude a day’s worth of honest work.

“Vargas, do you mind helping me out for a bit?” 

The young man couldn’t simply refuse someone’s request, much of the town depended on him for the heavy-lifting and such. Any young men who were capable of doing so were too busy with their apprenticeships or had left their hometown for other ventures, leaving Vargas to aid the quaint neighborhood. 

“Why, of course!” 

A relived smile graces the lips of the gentlemen as he beckons Vargas to his abode. A boisterous clamor permeates the room, with hearty men full of drink as tavern folk deliver drink after drink.

“Fishing season has been on full swing lately, my boy. We’ve been receiving quite a number of customers from all over to catch some good ones,” 

He retrieves a wooden board for Vargas and hands a finished drink from the counter. 

“You know what to do?” 

A wide smile answers the gentlemen’s request.

“Leave it to me, sir.” 

By this, the tavern staff and clients warmly welcome him, showering him in affectionate greetings as he delivers drinks in a timely fashion. As the bar settles down to a less chaotic state, Vargas grabs a drink as a thanks from the owner. 

“Ah yes, the voice in the night. If you’re so curious about the tale, listen closely..” 

The tale once again; no matter where he had heard it, he’d hear many retelling of it, albeit with the same plot and ending. 

“There once was a youth who sang with all their heart, their voice touching hearts from many of those who listened far and wide. Some wanted their hand in marriage, some simply wanted to sing along, some wanted to listen; the youth was revered to many as ‘Siren’, any trace of their former name forgotten or simply disregarded,” 

“They had a name before that?” 

A curious traveler inquiries, 

“Aye, patience, patience, my dear friend. I was getting to that; you see, many would like to believe that the ‘Siren’ was nothing but a creature themselves, a mermaid if you will. However, since this is a local legend, we’d like to say that the ‘Siren’ was actually a youth named [Reader] who kept singing to their heart’s content.” 

Vargas had to stifle a snicker. The townspeople really loved to rub that fact of locality in their tales.

“But if you think this is a happy tale, it’s not, my friend,” 

The storyteller continues, much to the traveler’s chagrin. 

“Our beloved ‘Siren’ was human, someone who was seeking someone to accompany their life for eternity, and no matter who they’d meet, they’d only recognize them for their voice and not their person. However, they’d continue singing to their heart’s content, never stopping until no one could hear it,” 

A stunned silence follows. 

“What happened?” 

“Well, no one knows why. It was as if they stopped singing.” 

~ ~ ~

After saying his goodbyes to the tavern staff from a good night’s work, Vargas walks the scenic walk home, a longer way where he’d admire the sights of the town. He didn’t sleep much per se, his home an empty space for him to return to every night, and seeing the humble lives of the village made him quite feel uneasy. He was about to return home when he gave pause, hearing a telltale sign of someone singing. 

The Siren? He didn’t believe in the tale that much, but having it fresh on his mind made him quite paranoid. 

“Who is there?” 

The singing continued, this time approaching closer and closer to the man. His body stiffens, a sudden chill shivering up his spine. He swallowed the bout of fear blooming in his midst, as he came face to a beauty he had never seen before. 

“Good evening, Sir Vargas.” 

A melodic voice, following a gentle smile, graces the lips of someone he had never seen before, but heard tales of. 

“[Reader]?” 

The man thought he was in a dream, where a face so familiar was one he had met in a previous life.

#twst x reader #twst vargas #twisted wonderland vargas #handle with care

[privateraelle]

your honest thoughts on the motherland finale?

oh boy jsdfks i knew this ask was gonna come up one way or another so i guess i might get it out of the way now. that finale was bad. disappointing. i've never said a single bad thing about motherland. like. ever. i've always trusted the writers and eliot to handle things like they did with s1 and s2 and even though s2 was a bit messy, it was good. but what happened last night was one big messy clusterfuck. i was sad, mad, on the verge of tears because of how bad it was. i've always been the biggest "trust the writers" idiot and i kinda wanna eat my hand now cause sdjfkds i trusted the writers and they fucked me over but it's okAY i'm fine i'll get over it cause someone whom i adore very much can write me a fix fic. anyway this show has been my comfort show for 2 years and it has given me one of the best experiences i've ever had. it has also introduced me to people that are everything to me and i won't ever forget how good it has made me feel, always. so, this is just constructive criticism of something i love.

so, my thoughts, no specific order, just things that won't leave my mind and won't let me and my brain process how stupid everything was:

no closure for any character. like. at all. it's literally an open ending and i know eliot was maybe hoping he would have more chances for the show to get picked up by another network but??? what the fuck was that. there are so many questions that stay unanswered and so many things that make no sense AT ALL and for what. what happened after everybody became a witch? did they end conscription? if that's not the case, why would raelle and scylla go back to the army willingly knowing they wanted to escape? leaving those things to the imagination of the audience is not good storytelling mister, it's bad writing and it's so unserious. when tally got her sight back, they could've shown the audience the characters' future instead of doing whatever they did in that final scene. they should've provided a solid conclusion to the show, they knew it was their last season and they didn't deliver.

so many unnecessary scenes of silver and hearst and his fucking sister which surprise!! is still out and didn't make a final appearance. she was introduced as a new character and her purpose was what exactly? being a mean sister? yeah, okay i guess. unnecessary. they wasted so much time on useless scenes of the camarilla being bad™ when it added absolutely nothing to the plot (hearst singing???? jesus fucking christ what was eliot on), instead of giving us things we genuinely care about. like haha the main fucking couple they forgot existed til ep 8.

that's the next thing i'm gonna talk about. raylla was done so fucking dirty this season. i know all about tay's accident and i'm so glad she healed completely but there was no reason to keep them apart for so many episodes after she was back to filming?? i wasn't mad about raelle reuniting with the unit first, like, not at all. i loved it. but scylla being kidnapped for no reason at all and them not reuniting til next episode was a big dick move and again, unnecessary. their reunion was spoiled in the actual trailer of the season which made it even more anticlimactic and dull, thank god amalia and taylor put their whole souls into them or i wouldn't have felt a single thing. don't get me started on how they have butchered raelle and how they took a lot of fucking liberties with her character. you're telling me raelle was okay with not knowing where scylla was for a whole ass WEEK and she was just straight up chillin' and not losing her shit? nah, i don't think so. anyway, their scenes are cut short and have the length of a tiktok video. when was their last meaningful conversation as a couple?? idk probably in s2 cause they haven't had those in s3, not even in the first episodes where all they gave us were lil amalia/taylor touches n glances. the proposal and the wedding felt rushed, ridiculous and like something they did to shut people up. "they got married what more do you want?" an on-screen relationship with actual fucking scenes that show how the characters feel towards each other, maybe, idk could be wrong. they were not treated like the main couple this season and it's been a hard pill to swallow but it's true. the finale was just scylla holding raelle and carrying her around and that's it. gregorio and tally, a couple that got together LAST EPISODE got a kiss and a worried hug and we got!! nothing!! haha yeah. not even an ending for them. the setup was there. the lighthouse, raelle and scylla running together and living near the beach. instead we got them standing next to each other like they're best buds. welp, at least they're not dead, right?

scylla's treatment was also bullshit. they did an exceptional job on making her part of the unit just to throw her under the bus last minute and sideline her character at the end. that last scene felt empty without her. i know the show's always been about the unit, i agree. but scylla's part of the unit now. she should've been there. instead, she just carried raelle around, and did nothing. what a waste. amalia knows her way around stunts, they should've made her fight and show us what she's actually capable of. but whatever.

anacostia's death pissed me off so much. it was anticlimactic and pretty avoidable if you ask me. i remember last night when watching the ep, i didn't even react to her death because it felt so ??? stupid?? that i was like "haha dude she's not dead". and she was? what the fuck eliot. it didn't make sense for the plot, it was just a big fuck you to us all and a stupid attempt at pulling a plot twist. it wasn't a plot twist, it was absurd. the audience didn't even have time to mourn her. if they wanted to kill someone and make the audience feel something, they should've gone for petra. i know miss ashley would've delivered a performance. but anacostia's death was pointless and mister sterling what's his name wasn't the person she should've died for. if they wanted to kill her so bad, she should've died protecting the unit.

can someone explain to me how making everyone a witch solves the world's problems? what was eliot thinking? forcing everyone to be the same, erasing their identities and differences and giving the camarilla (remember!! bad people who hate witches!!) actual power to fight them and kill them seems pretty stupid to me. also the big epic moment didn't feel like one. it felt pretty dull.

okay, some positive feelings:

i really missed arlen's nicte. i'm really glad she made a last appearance. nicte is my bestie i love her.

the whole raylla/adigail convo about the lighthouse and the ocean. beautiful.

raelle healing scylla and refusing to let anything happen to her.

izadora is a fucking beast i'm so glad she's not dead. the scene of her laughing in alban's face. GOLD.

abi being the last steward <3

and that's pretty much it. i'm sure i'm leaving sooo many things behind but this is as much as i can think of right now. i'll be mad for a few days and then i'll start giffing to numb the pain i guess sjfds.

#ask #anonymous #sorry for the long answer dsjfkds

[bengiyo]

BL Round-Up

This is the first time in a while that I’ve been watching less than 10 shows at once, so I figured I’d get some of my thoughts down.

Big Feelings

Where is the Sexual Tension?

I am in a weird funk with BL right now about how saccharine shows want to be. I feel an intense mismatch with how much exists within the drama and what feels like overly-modest portrayals of relationship dynamics. Maybe it’s just actor chemistry not lining up effectively with the shows, but I’ve been deeply bored with a lot of pairs active right now, and I wonder if it’s just because the gap between the good and the bad feels extreme for me right now. So, sincerely, where is the sexual tension in the dramas right now? Did KinnPorsche suck all of it out of the genre at once?

Running From Embarassment

This is a Japanese trope that I think I’m falling out of love with. Ever since @absolutebl conflated it with blushing maiden trope, I’ve not been able to unsee it. It feels like an easy way to bring a scene to an end and avoid a Now Kiss moment, but I kinda hate watching boys from each other if they feel a rise in romantic or sexual tension.

The Shows

Close Friend 2 - I am actually liking this show, even if I think it’s a bit slow. I know a lot of people were frustrated with SOTUS S and IPYTM, but I really like when we go past the high of getting together with someone and plunge into the not-so-pretty world of being with someone. I really like that Fluke and Ohm get to show a couple suffering inside the closet together. However, I think I’m learning that I’m not a KimCop fan. I’ve bounced off of almost every project they’ve been involved with, and I’m struggling here too. I like the story being told about their characters and their pairing, but I don’t think I’m really feeling them as a pair. To be clear, I think they’re doing an admirable job even if I’m not totally with them.

Dear Doctor, I’m Coming For Soul - This is another post-school show that I will always support in the hopes that the genre doesn’t get stuck only telling stories about teens and undergrads. However, Prakan’s god complex has been frustrating, and Metha’s misplaced jealousy is going to worsen care for patients. It’s bad enough that I’m questioning Nuch’s crush on Metha, because he is giving off such terrible vibes. I think Nathee falls for Kheeta a little quickly (in the sense that I didn’t feel his feelings shift on screen even if I understand where it may have occurred), but I’m invested in seeing their dynamic through. I’m enjoying the supernatural components, but I’m not entirely certain where this story is headed. 

Still, I want to appload this show for delivering solid intimate chemistry with its couples, which I’ve been wanting a lot more of lately.

KinnPorsche - There’s a lot of feelings all over the tags about this show, but I am still liking it. I think the episodes can have some huge tonal swings sometimes (I felt that in episode 2 especially), but damn do I really love how earnest this show manages to be when deceit and manipulation are a big part of the storytelling. There are some banger posts folks have been writing about this, and I’m having fun seeing a lot of folks intensely engaged again. Feels like we haven’t had that since Not Me or Bad Buddy. Really enjoying the work on this show, and enjoying the way Be On Cloud has been doing BTS drops. I feel like this show has a lot of ground to cover in six episodes, but I’m really enjoying the cast and especially the way Mile and Apo are playing out this relationship. More than Dear Doctor, I’m enjoying believing that the characters want to bone. 

La Cuisine - I like the friends and family of this show, but HOO BOY is this show SLOW. That being said, I like that this show called a gay bashing what it was, and I like seeing a famous actress express righteous rage at the way paparazzi violate the privacy of children. There are an alarming number of stories in recent years from SE Asia about reporters inflicinting injury on infants and toddlers to get to their parents. Ram and Lukchub are a bit weak for me, but this show has been an easy watch, so I’m not gonna be harsh. There are a lot of neat things in this show, especially seeing people suss out NamNing right away and bring the correct response. Half-joked to my bestie that she was gonna have a gun, and I am sad that I am correct.

Meow Ears Up! - I often struggle with shapeshifter stories for a lot of different reasons, but this show ended up being more fun (so far) than I expected. I struggle with Meow’s awareness of the world, because he seems overly sheltered sometimes and supremely aware other times. Evan and Faiyen are a lot easier to approach. I have enjoyed the GL in this show with Jin and Manni. However…where is the sexual tension in this show? It’s too sweet for me, I think.

Mr. Unlucky Has No Choice But To Kiss! - I am really loving this show. Japan is always good at taking a very narrow concept and getting a lot of character mileage out of it. I like Shinomiya being firm with Fukuhara and demanding they be clear about their intentions for each other, especially one that covered a lot of ground. I like Fukuhara starting to look at his life differently. I like the vibe of all of the other classmates. I liked the end of the episode, where once again Shinomiya keeps his worries private and only expresses joy and relief to see Fukuhara whole. We even got to see Shinomiya in an apron that looks so much like overalls that it sent me to the stratosphere. (Shoutout to @liyazaki for giffing that for me). I like this show a lot, and my biggest hope is that we understand why Shinomiya has liked Fukuhara since before the first episode. Also, why is there a GUN in the next episode. So many guns in BL right now!

My Secret Love - I am watching this to support Earth Teerapat, but I don’t know that I’m feeling it after the first episode? It took me three sittings to finish it. Maybe I’m nearing the end of my ability to watch all school BL, particularly enemies to lovers. I think the implication that there are multiple secret pairings is interesting, but eh? Otherwise, the show sincerely seems fine; I just think my tastes are shifting.

Plus & Minus - I love, love, love this show. I’m a sucker for long-term pining between best friends. I’m also a sucker for someone living a quiet life getting sucked up into a new romance with a far more outgoing partner. The bed scene of episode 8 is probably something I will talk about forever, and may devote a second post to. For now, let me say that I was so glad we got to see both Fu Li Gong and Zhang Ze Zhou awkwardly prepare for their first night in bed as a couple. I like that they were able to find comfort in each other, and I really like Ze Zhou being comfortable with Li Gong wanting to stop for the night. We rarely see that in BL, and I loved it. Also, the double date camping trip was incredibly endearing for both couples. I look forward to this and Mr. Unlucky very late on Thursday night to the point that it’s affected my watching of Critical Role. 

Star in My Mind - I like that it felt like Kluen could lose Daoneua for not getting his shit together, but goddamn was this show painful for me. I don’t generally enjoy noncommunication as a story driver. I’m also not a fan of the way Kluen consistently kisses Daoneua unexpectedly or when he’s sleeping. This felt pretty familiar in terms of Thai BL, but I don’t think I’m going to reflect on this one fondly. 

What Zabb Man - I feel like I wanted something from this show that it absolutely did not promise at all. In a lot of ways, I actually think this show is really delightful in that it takes a lot of the movements of college BL and applies them to people working in food service. You get a competition. You get pining and relationship drama. You get the sort of cute, patient first steps of first time dating. You get a really possessive seme. You even get the complexities of huge wealth gap in a relationship. I think this show is truly fine. I just think I was hoping for the BL answer to Waiting (2005), and was expecting there to be more heat to this show, particularly amongst the kitchen staff. I thought this show would go that route early, but things felt rather chaste in the finale.

I’m still hoping that someone will give us the dramatic and “why is everyone having sex with everyone?” show that we need.

Final Thoughts

I continue to enjoy BL, though I will say I’m glad I’m not watching close to 15 active show right now. I feel like I’m not enjoying the more soft and cute shows with minimal sexual tension in them at this point, especially when the leads and characters are adults; I can understand the restrictions placed on filming and displaying minors in other countries. 

Honestly, I feel like I just want more of Kinou Nani Tabeta (aka What Did You Eat Yesterday?) and Papa & Daddy. 

#close friend 2 #dear doctor i'm coming for soul #kinnporsche #la cuisine the series #meow ears up #mr. unlucky has no choice but to kiss! #my secret love #plus & minus #star in my mind #what zabb man #Ben watches